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An Investigation of Teachers Perceptions of Culture

Teaching in Secondary Schools in Xinjiang, China
HAN, HUI

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An Investigation of Teachers’ Perceptions of
Culture Teaching in Secondary Schools in
Xinjiang, China

By
HAN HUI

A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

School of Education
University of Durham
U.K

September, 2009
‘Culture is something like making bread with butter in. It is
named as butter bread. If butter is spread on the top of the
bread, it is not butter bread’.

‘Culture and language are twins, look very much like each
other. People can’t easily distinguish who is who’.

Quotes from school teachers

in Xinjiang, Northwest China
 Table of Contents

Dedication ……………………………………………………………………………….
Abstract..............................................................
Declaration ..........................................................
Acknowledgements......................................................
A list of Abbreviations...............................................
A list of Tables ……………………………………………………………………..
Chapter One - Introduction ................................................................................................. 1
1.1 Research background ······························································································· 1
1.1.1 Personal experience as a learner /teacher of English··········································· 1
1.1.2 The role of language and culture in 21st century ················································· 3
1.1.3 Challenges of ELT in the era of globalization ···················································· 4
1.1.4 The status quo of ELT in China·········································································· 5
1.2 Research questions ······································································································ 8
1.3 The composition of the thesis······················································································ 9
Chapter Two – A Brief History of English Language Curriculum Development at the
Secondary School Level in China..................................................................................... 13
2.1 Introduction··············································································································· 13
2.2 A brief review of the historical development of the English curriculum from 1976 to
the revised 2001 curriculum ···························································································· 14
2.3. Globalization and English teaching for intercultural communication ····················· 30
2.4 Cultural teaching – a comparison ·············································································· 34
2.4.1 Cultural teaching concepts in the language curriculum in the United States of
America····················································································································· 34
2.4.2 Cultural teaching concepts in the language curriculum in Canada···················· 37
2.4.3 Cultural teaching concepts in the language curriculum in England and Wales · 42
2.4.4 Cultural teaching concepts in the language curriculum in China ······················ 45
2.5 Intercultural teaching································································································· 53
I
2.6. The analysis of curriculum in aspects of intercultural competence··························· 56
2.7 Summary of the chapter ···························································································· 71
Chapter Three An Analysis of Literature on Language-Culture Teaching .................... 74
3.1 Introduction··············································································································· 74
3.2 The debate about the relationship between language and culture and its implications
for language teaching ······································································································ 74
3.2.1 The implications for language teaching ···························································· 78
3.2.2 Development of culture teaching in foreign language education ······················ 79
3.3 Research situation in culture studies in China ··························································· 81
3.3.1 Chronological development of culture teaching in China ································· 82
3.3.2 Definitions of culture························································································ 85
3.4 Cultural Contents in Language Education ································································· 87
3.4.1 Chinese scholars’ perceptions of what cultural contents should be taught in
language teaching······································································································ 87
3.4.2 Western scholars’ perceptions of what cultural content should be taught in
language teaching······································································································ 91
3.4.3 Summary ········································································································ 101
3.5 How to teach culture in foreign language teaching·················································· 102
3.5.1 The basic principles of culture teaching in EFL in China ······························· 103
3.5.2 Factors influencing the choice of methodology ·············································· 106
3.5.3 Methods versus approaches ············································································ 109
3.5.4 The most common approaches to the teaching of culture ······························· 111
3.5.5 Techniques and activities for teaching culture················································ 117
3.5.6 Teacher roles ·································································································· 122
3.6 Teachers’ beliefs ····································································································· 128
3.6.1 Definition of belief ························································································· 131
3.6.2 General beliefs and context-specific beliefs ··················································· 133
3.6.3 The connection between beliefs and behaviours············································· 141
3.6.4 Teachers’ beliefs regarding the goals of language education ·························· 142
3.6.5 Teachers’ beliefs regarding culture and language ··········································· 145
II
 3.6.6 Change of teachers’ beliefs············································································· 148
3.7 A summary of the chapter ······················································································· 155
Chapter Four Research Methodology......................................................................... 156
4.1 The nature of research in education········································································· 157
4.1.1 Quantitative or qualitative research ································································ 159
4.1.2 Choice of research method ············································································· 160
4.2 Survey study············································································································ 161
4.3 The techniques and procedures of the questionnaire development and administration164
4.3.1 The preliminary idea of a questionnaire and its possibilities ·························· 164
4.3.2 The items of the questionnaire········································································ 165
4.3.3. The design of the questionnaire ····································································· 169
4.3.4 The pilot study································································································ 172
4.3.5 Learning from the pilot study ········································································· 176
4.3.6 Population and sample···················································································· 176
4.3.7 Administration of the questionnaire and data collection ································· 181
4.3.8 Data treatment: statistical procedures ····························································· 184
4.4 Survey reliability and validity ················································································· 187
4.5 The limitations of this research ··············································································· 190
4.6 Ethical issues··········································································································· 191
4.7 A summary of the chapter ······················································································· 192
Chapter Five Results of the Survey and Discussion...................................... ……….194
5.1 The basic information on English teachers’ and trainers’ profile in Xinjiang·········· 194
5.2 Descriptive analysis of teachers’ and trainers’ beliefs about language and culture
teaching························································································································· 199
5.2.1Teachers’ and trainers’ attitudes towards culture teaching (Q1,Q2,Q4,Q10)··· 200
5.2.2 Teachers’ perceptions of language teaching objectives (Q5) ·························· 204
5.2.3 Teachers’ perceptions of objectives of cultural teaching (Q6) ························ 209
5.2.4 Analysis of different groups of teachers’ beliefs about language and culture
teaching……………………………………………………………………………..214
5.3 Analysis of teachers’ understanding of ‘Culture’(Q3) ············································· 217
III
5.4 Possible topics in culture teaching (Q9) ·································································· 237
5.5 Teaching techniques for culture teaching (Q11)······················································ 241
5.6 Teachers’ perceptions of time they devote to culture teaching (Q7 &Q8) ··············· 248
5.7 Teachers’ perceptions of culture teaching materials in textbooks (Q12, Q13, Q14,
Q15, Q16······················································································································· 264
5.8 Teachers’ general opinions regarding intercultural competence teaching················ 273
5.9 A summary of the chapter ······················································································· 287
Chapter Six Concluding Remarks ....................................................................... 290
6.1 Summary of resultsb································································································ 291
6.2 An analysis of the current situation ········································································· 294
6.2.1 The official document····················································································· 294
6.2.2 Teachers’ background and experience···························································· 297
6.2.3 Institution/External Environment ··································································· 300
6.3 Implications from the data and some considerations ··············································· 301
6.4 An Action Plan for teachers in Xinjiang·································································· 305
6.5 Limitations and the need for future research ··························································· 307
6.6 Researcher’s Reflections ························································································· 308
References……………………………………………………………………………...313
Appendix 1 Attainment 2,5,8 regarding cultural awareness designated
in the curriculum…………………………………………………………..340
Appendix 2 A CoverLetter of the Survey ……………………………………………...341
Appendix 3 Survey: Teachers’ Perceptions on Culture /intercultural Teaching………..342
Appendix 4 The transcript of teachers’ understanding of ‘culture’ in Q3……………...352
Appendix 5 The transcript of the reasons why you want (don’t want) to spend more
time on ‘culture teaching’ during your English Teaching in Q8………….361
Appendix 6 Please give brief explanation why you chose these cultural topics in Q9...370

IV
 Dedication

To my late parents and my beloved husband, Zhou

Yuan-ren and our lovely daughter Zhou Wen-xuan

V
 An Investigation of Teachers’ Perceptions of Culture Teaching in

Secondary Schools in Xinjiang

Han Hui

Abstract
English Language education in China has gone through several stages of development in
the past 30 years. The early method of language learning was centred on grammar
acquisition but this has since moved to the current approach of communicative
competence development. Although the Official Document in 2001 laid down ‘cultural
awareness’ as one of the language teaching objectives, there seems to be a gap between the
new curriculum and what goes on in classrooms. The aim of this study is to investigate
teachers’ perspectives on cultural teaching in terms of the teaching objectives of language
and culture; teachers’ understanding of ‘culture’; the cultural topics they favour to teach in
the classroom; the techniques they use to teach culture; time allocation to culture teaching
and finally their attitudes towards intercultural communicative competence so as to design
courses at the teacher training college to meet the needs of the teachers. The method of my
research involves a survey: questionnaires were sent to the schools as well as trainers in
the teaching college after a pilot run and group discussion in refining the questions. The
returned survey is then categorized and analyzed based on Byram’s intercultural
communicative competence model. The analyzed results show encouraging signs of
teachers’ and college trainers’ willingness to engage in cultural teaching, but the results
also reflects teething problems to fully engage cultural communicative competence in the
classrooms. The highly examination-oriented environment, the practical approach of
teachers and students and the academic qualification/experience of teachers are some of
the current problems in teaching culture in the classroom. The teachers’ college plays an
important role in changing the perception of cultural teaching of teachers and the results
show a need for courses to build the understanding and confidence of teachers in the
classrooms.

VI
Key words: survey, teachers’ perceptions, cultural/intercultural teaching, foreign language
education, intercultural communicative competence, curriculum, cultural awareness and
teacher training courses.

VII
 Declaration

The material contained in this thesis, apart from where indicated, is the work

of the author alone and no part of it has previously been submitted by me for

a degree in this or any other university.

Statement of copyright

The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should

be published without the author’s prior written consent and information

derived from it should be acknowledged.

VIII
 Acknowledgements

First, I want to thank my late parents who brought me to this world and educated me to be
strong, to be independent, to be responsible and to be thankful to every one who helps me
in my life.

My deepest and sincere thanks will surely be dedicated to my supervisor, Professor

Michael Byram, who gave me encouragement, inspiration, support, friendship and
patience through the whole course of my research. It is he who made my research
‘Rocky-Road’ smooth; it is he who gave my life richly blessed; it is he who made me
understand how to be; it is he who planted seeds in my academic career which will last in
my lifetime. Without him, the present research could not have seen the light.

I would like to express my particular professional gratitude to Lies Sercu, Renate A.

Schulz and Paloma Castro who generously provided information relevant to my research
and shared their research ideas which enlightened me in my research.

I am thankful to Memtimyn who devoted his precious time to help me with the design of
the web survey and my colleagues Mynur Eziz and Ran Tican in China who gave me
outpouring support for data collection and entry into the computer. Without their help, the
research couldn’t have been finished as expected.

I am deeply indebted to my English friends, Marie Thérèse, and Adam Nichols who
generously provided me with daily necessities and spiritually support; and especially
Adam Nichols who tried his best to provide me with the opportunities for intercultural
experiences with the local community and enrich my intercultural life in Durham.

IX
I always feel grateful to Guo Yannan and Wu Daming who supported me at my most
despairing moment. Their generous support permitted me to study in Durham with less
worries about the accommodation. Their help and friendship can never be measured in
terms of money.

I can’t finish without mentioning my husband, Zhou Yuanren , who spent days and nights
alone with our daughter taking care of all the tasks that should have been shared by me as
a mother and as a wife.

Finally, certainly not the least, I would also thank all my colleagues, friends and students
who have offered me great help by participating in my research, giving feedback and
insightful comments. They are always in my heart. Their cooperation, support and advice
greatly facilitated the empirical research and helped me see this project through to
completion.

X
 A list of Abbreviations

ELT = English Language Teaching

ICC = Intercultural Communicative Competence

IC=Intercultural Competence

ICT= Intercultural Teaching

EFL = English as a Foreign Language

CET = College English Test

TEM = Test for English Majors

FLT = Foreign Language Teaching

SFLL = Standards for Foreign Language Learning

ESL = English as Second Language

ELD = English Literacy Development

CECS = China’s English Curriculum Standards

ESC = English Speaking Countries

NNCE = National New English Curriculum

XI
 A list of Tables

Table 2.1 Key features of the English language curriculum 1978………………...17

Table 2.2 Key features of the English language curriculum 1982………………...19
Table 2.3 Key features of the English language curriculum 1993………………...23
Table 2.4 Components of ICC developed by Byram 1999……….…………….....56
Table 2.5 The example table of classification of ICC of English curriculum
in China……………………………………………………..………….57
Table 2.6 The classification of ICC in primary school (age 10-12)……,,.………..63
Table 2.7 The classification of ICC in junior middle school (age13-15).…,……...66
Table 2.8 The classification of ICC in senior middle school(age 16-18)……...…..68
Table 3.1 Features of cultural study courses in China……………...…….………..93
Table 3.2 Factors in IC……………………………….………...………………….99
Table 4.1 An example of recording data in rows andcolumns ………….………..184
Table 4.2 An example of open-response questions…………………….….….…..186
Table 5.1 The basic information on English teachers’ and trainers’ profile
in Xinjiang………………………………………………………………194
Table 5.2 Teachers’ and trainers’ interest in culture teaching………….………….200
Table 5.3 Teachers’ and trainers’ opinions on the importance of
culture teaching………………………..…………………………………202
Table 5.4 The necessity of having cultural items in the curriculum………………..203
Table 5.5 The list of objectives in English teaching………..…………………........205
Table 5.6 The result of teachers’ and trainers’ beliefs on objectives of ELT…….…206
Table 5.7 Culture teaching objectives in four dimensions……………..…………...209
Table 5.8 The result of culture teaching objectives in four dimensions………...…..209
Table 5.9 Mean results for three groups of language/culture teaching objectives….214
Table 5.10 ANOVA results of three groups on Q5and Q6…..………………………..215
Table 5.11 Multiple comparisons of three groups on Q5and Q6……..………………215

XII
Table 5.12 Categorization of Chinese teachers’ definitions of ‘culture’………..……218
Table 5.13 Categorization of Danish and England teachers’
definition of ‘culture’…………………………………………………….233
Table 5.14 Percentage of Chinese teachers’ definitions of ‘culture’…………….…...234
Table 5.15 Possible culture topics…………………………………………….……...238
Table 5.16 Possible culture topics or themes given in three countries………….…... 240
Table 5.17 Activities used by teachers and trainers………………….……………….242
Table 5.18 Comparison of activities used by teachers and trainers…………………..246
Table 5.19 Distribution of teaching time over English and culture teaching………...249
Table 5.20 Teachers’ degree of willingness to devote more time to
culture teaching……………………………………………………………...250
Table 5.21 Textbooks choice…………………………………………….……………265
Table 5.22 Freedom of using additional materials…………………….……………...267
Table 5.23 Percentage of culture contents in the textbook……………….…………..268
Table 5.24 Teachers’ degree of satisfaction with the culture contents
in the textbook…….……………………....................................................269
Table 5.25 Estimation of culture contents included in the exam……….……………..271
Table 5.26 Presentation of statements regarding the intercultural
dimension of teaching……………………………………………………….274
Table 5.27 Willingness to teach IC…………………………………………………...275
Table 5.28 Factors affecting their willingness to teach IC……………………….......277
Table 5.29 The comparison of the factors affecting willingness
of teachers from China and some European countries………..…………….278
Table 5.30 The comparison of factors weakening willingness of
teachers from China and some European countries………………………...283
Table 6. 1 A summary of the responses related to the research questions…………...291

XIII
Chapter One - Introduction

1.1 Research background

1.1.1 Personal experience as a learner /teacher of English

The origins of this thesis lie principally within my own experience of learning English
language as a student, teaching English in a secondary school, and in an educational
college as a teacher and teacher trainer for English language over a period of 20 years.
The way I was taught exerted a great impact on the way I teach. That was the grammar
translation method which probably was the most commonly used way of learning
language in China for years, and it is still practiced in many situations. It was thought
that by analyzing the grammatical structure and by finding equivalents between the
students’ mother tongue language and language to be studied, the students will learn how
the foreign language is constructed. I was a product of such a pattern of language
learning through the grammar-translation method in the 1980s in China. The acquisition
of English grammar and language I had devoted so many years to didn’t appear to be any
problem until I went to the UK for further study in 2000. It was the first time for me to
realize that good linguistic competence didn’t necessarily mean good communicative
competence in a real language situation. My personal experience proved this. As soon as
I landed at Heathrow Airport, I was suddenly bewildered as I was thrown into great
trouble. The language I spoke could be understood but I couldn’t catch what the native
speakers said because of their strong accent or dialect. Incidents like how to open an
account, how to call back home and how to define the names of the food in the
supermarket which I took for granted at home became big problems in a foreign country.
I came to be aware that a whole new set of language and culture learning priorities rose
up to meet me. For the first time, I had to use English to communicate with all sorts of
people in many different situations in the UK. Apart from social contact, however, I also

1
had to adapt myself to the English way of life, a process that took time, effort and
attention. My daily social life and study encountered one challenge after another that I
had to somehow handle cautiously without making a fool of myself or offending anyone.
Looking back over my diary entries at that time, I saw how confused I often was, how
strong my emotions were, how categorical my judgments were, how much I wrote about
my own culture, how many questions I asked, and how much I wondered about myself.
The process I was going through was unlike anything I had ever experienced. I had no
frame of reference for these experiences. Models of cultural entry, adjustment,
adaptation, and cultural shock were not available to me at that time; consequently, I had
to figure things out as best I could, observing others. I was trying to determine how to
adjust to English culture and established myself somewhere on a continuum between an
insular expatriate Chinese community on one end and, on the other, full assimilation into
English culture, leaving my own culture and language behind.

I began this research report with a story of my own experiences as a language and culture
learner for a number of reasons. Above all, I want to understand the importance of
teaching culture integrated with language teaching; I want to emphasize that culture
learning, whether it occurs in a foreign language or second language context, inside or
outside the classroom, with or without teachers, through books or through people, is best
seen as a lived experience, as a personal encounter with another way of life. This
encounter is unique to every learner. Every learner has a distinct story to tell and has a
different way to learn language and culture. In the final analysis, as language teachers,
we too have stories of learning language and culture. The way we teach culture springs
from our histories as language and culture learners and our own understanding of
ourselves. Bringing my own stories to light can help me see how to foster culture
learning in the students in the language classes.

My intercultural encounters in UK made me realize that using one’s own values to judge
someone from another culture is bound to result in miscommunication even though both

2
parties are well intentioned. Attempting to understand another person through the
perspective of that person’s own culture is an important step towards better relationships.
Furthermore, learning about other cultures can be intrinsically rewarding and fascinating,
helping us to appreciate the richness and depth of the human experience. Therefore the
new research areas of culture studies and intercultural communication in language
education opened up a new interest for me and made me reflect on language education in
China.

1.1.2 The Role of language and culture in 21st century

Kramsch (1991, p.217) holds that culture and language are ‘inseparable and constitute a
single universe or domain of experience’. Regarding language teaching, Byram and
Morgan (1994, p5) strongly maintain that culture learning has to be taken as an integral
part of language learning and vice versa. However, when the target language is English,
the world’s lingua franca in its new global form (Graddol, 2006), the scope of the target
culture becomes fuzzy and unpredictable. Regarding the relationship of English and
culture, as English is an international language, the use of it is no longer connected to the
culture of inner circle countries like Britain and America where English is the primary
language. In reality, the current trends in ELT have reflected this assumption. According
to Risager (1998, p.243) the foreign language approach which is ‘based on the concept of
the single culture associated with a specific people, a specific language, and normally
with a specific territory ‘ has evolved into the intercultural approach that rests on a
concept of cultures as ‘structurally related to each other’ (p.244), and therefore, teachers
and students are expected to relate the foreign culture to their source culture and, possibly,
to the cultures of still other countries. This trend reflects, to a certain extent, the
departure from the single target culture (Anglo-American cultures in English teaching) to
more complex and expanding target cultures in language teaching and the increasing
awareness of the target language being lingua franca in international communication.

3
1.1.3 Challenges of ELT in the era of globalization

Graddol (2006, p.12) claims that ‘the phenomenon of English being a global language
lies at the heart of globalization’. We have been witnessing ‘global economic flows’ and
‘global cultural flows’ in today’s global village, and therefore there have been increasing
interdependence and interconnectedness among nations and people as well. Crystal
(2003, p.13) suggests that ‘there has never been a time when so many nations needed to
talk to each other so much’. Indeed, ‘social and economic globalization has necessitated
the use of an international means of communication in the world. English has become the
language of international communication’ (Alptekin, 2002, p 32). Therefore the vitality
of English in the era of globalization produces more changes and challenges to the
established pedagogies in English teaching. It may be asked what the goal of English
teaching in the age of information and globalization is. To develop learners’
communicative competence or, to use the more popular term, intercultural
communicative competence (ICC), is all too easy an answer, simple enough to be on the
lips of everyone concerned but tough enough to engage scholars worldwide in search of
the true nature of English language education and an agenda that best reflects this nature.
With regards to English language education as a foreign or second language, this search
seems even more challenging and more inviting at the same time. The fact is that
non-native English speakers have already outnumbered its native speakers. Crystal (2003,
p.69) estimates the ratio of native to-non-native is around 1:3 taking into account macro
acquisition of English in the EFL context. Based on this, Graddol (2006) predicts that an
inexorable trend in the use of global English is that fewer interactions now involve a
native speaker. In other words, English is very often the language used between
non-native English speakers, e.g. between the Japanese and Koreans, between Russians
and Germans. With the changing profile of English speakers, the intercultural
communication participants are likely to be non-natives bringing with them distinctive
cultural backgrounds; the global village has increased such kinds of intercultural

4
encounters. Thus it is unrealistic to expect that English would stay the same as the
‘standard English’ and the non-natives would share the beliefs and conventions of the
British and Americans. ‘English has ceased to be a vehicle of western cultures’ (Kachru,
1986, p.92), but carries the experiences and cultures of its respective users. The questions
provoked by this fact are: Should the cultural norms and values embedded in English be
followed by the learners even when they go against those of their own? What are the
dynamics that are at work in foreign or second language education? How is
foreign/second language education related to the general education framework? How can
we empower learners with the ability to communicate effectively and appropriately with
people of different colours, beliefs, accents, and ways of life? These questions and many
others of the kind point at the complexities of English language teaching. Cultural
contents about other countries apart from those of Anglo-American must be taken into
account and will start to play a more relevant role in today’s intercultural
communications.

In this study, Chinese teachers’ opinions on language-culture teaching objectives, what

cultural contents should be included in language teaching will be investigated to see
whether they are ready to meet this challenge in this new situation.

1.1.4 The status quo of ELT in China

ELT researchers and practitioners in China are facing this challenge as China has the
largest number of English learners and China’s overwhelming internationalization and
modernization will push up the already huge demand for competent English users. The
social status of English in China means that English teaching occupies a dominant place
in Chinese school and university curricula. English learning starts in primary school as a
compulsory subject in recent years and it continues up to the last year of senior high
school. Most students learn English for more than 9 years before they enter universities
or colleges. As college students, they continue to learn English in order to pass the

5
College English Test (CET) Band 4 & Band 6 for non-English majors, and the Test for
English Majors (TEM) Band 4 & Band 8. Besides these institutional requirements on
English as a subject of learning, there is also a high demand in English proficiency for
employment and professional promotion throughout the country. Many Chinese students
have spent more than twelve years in studying English, but the result shows that most of
them, having got high scores in the exams, can’t communicate well with foreigners (Liu,
2008). Sometimes their English is perfect without any grammatical mistakes, but they
just don’t know how to use English appropriately and effectively. Failure in
communication with people from other cultures is a very common phenomenon. The real
reason often lies in the fact that they don’t know that the cultural aspect also plays a very
important role in foreign language learning, as I have shown from my own experience
above. Because of lack of understanding of foreign culture, language learners have no
idea about what should be said and what should not be said in some given situation. As
Professor Deng Yanchang once said ‘Learning a foreign language well does not simply
mean mastering its pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. In fact, the learning of a
language is inseparable from the learning of its culture’ (Deng, 1996:34). The
fundamental function of language is to communicate. A successful English teaching is to
help language learners cultivate a good communicative ability.

This incompetence of the students in using English has brought home to Chinese
educators, especially to foreign language teachers all over the country, the importance of
reflection about past teaching ideologies and practice as well as serious contemplations
on reform in the future.

Research on effective English language teaching and in particular the integration of

language-culture teaching to meet the demand on students’ ability to use English in an
appropriate way are current issues in the academic world in general, and also in China.
Since the late 1970s and early 1980s, the promotion of the communicative approach
began to overshadow the more traditional approaches such as grammar-translation and

6
audio-lingual approaches. There have been appeals for shifts from the teacher-centred to
the learner-centred, structure-based to task- and content-based, linguistic
proficiency-based to English plus another specialty in paradigms of teaching (Hu,
2006b). In the past 20 or more years, there has been an increasing emphasis on the
learners’ communicative ability over sheer linguistic proficiency, and the teaching of
culture alongside the teaching of language. In more recent years, new teaching
approaches and methods are being explored, which aim to help Chinese learners to
develop the intercultural communicative competence (ICC). Many English teachers have
considered ICC as the goal of English teaching, and urged an integration of intercultural
communication with English language teaching. Indeed, with the exploration of
interrelationships between culture and communication and of problems related to
communication between people from different cultural backgrounds, the studies of
intercultural communication have much to offer for foreign language teaching.

As was mentioned before, English is taught as a compulsory subject at schools for a long
time. There are many changes taking place in terms of the curriculum; the teaching
objectives, teaching methods and evaluation system. Modifications are made from time
to time to uplift the quality and quantity of teaching and to import current teaching ideas,
which will be discussed in details in Chapter 2. A reformed National English Curriculum
for junior middle school was introduced in 2001. This curriculum is consistent with
communicative language teaching and teaching philosophy which put emphasis on needs
and skills. The concept of ‘cultural awareness’ appeared in the new curriculum for the
first time. New textbooks were introduced into the junior middle school. But other than
the new materials, new expectations and new demands on teachers also come along with
the implementation of the new curriculum. Thus, it is important to know more about
teachers’ thinking and beliefs if the implementation of a new curriculum and textbooks is
to be successful and this new change will be examined in this study, as will be detailed in
the next section.

7
1.2 Research questions

Based on what is described above about the new situation in language teaching and
learning, the new language teaching object of ‘cultural awareness’ introduced into the
curriculum, and also in the light of my own personal direct experiences of cultural shock
in the UK and my own academic interest in trying to find out how school teachers
perceive this concept of cultural awareness as one of English teaching objectives, the
overriding and overall aim of the thesis is to find out school teachers’ perceptions of
cultural teaching and their current practices in the English classroom so as to provide a
general picture of the current situation in language teaching in Xinjiang, Northwest
China.

To achieve this aim, the research questions are thus raised as follows:

1) What are the existing culture elements in the curriculum in terms of ICC?

2) Is it necessary to teach culture in language education?

3) What are the school teachers’ perceptions of culture/intercultural teaching in

the classroom in the aspects of :

___How do school teachers of English define culture?

___How do they understand the language and culture teaching objectives?

___What are their favourite culture topics to be taught in language teaching?

___What methods or approaches do they think should be used in teaching culture?

___How much time is distributed to teach culture in the language classroom and

___What is the percentage of culture content included in the exam?

8
___What role do teachers play in the language and culture teaching in their classroom?

4) Are teachers’ perceptions an encouraging basis for introducing change in their

teaching?

The above research questions are raised in terms of the overall aim of the thesis. Some
specific sub-questions for more detailed descriptions of the content of the thesis are
needed so that it is possible for more concrete analysis and discussions. These sub-
questions will be raised in later chapters.

1.3 The composition of the thesis

This thesis consists of six chapters which are described in a quick review of the title and
contents of them as follows:

Chapter One Introduction

This current chapter serves as an introduction to the key elements of the whole thesis. It
includes the background of the study and provides the reasons why I focus on this area.
And the research questions are proposed and the composition of the thesis is outlined.

Chapter 2: The historical development of English curriculum in China

This chapter attempts to answer the research questions 1 and 2: ‘What are the existing
cultural elements in language curriculum in terms of ICC?’ and ‘Is it necessary to
develop cultural elements into the curriculum?’ from the historical perspective by a
review of the development of the English language curriculum in junior secondary level.
The purpose is to see how English language teaching adapted to the socio-political
mandates of different periods; how the role of the English language changed; how the
emphasis shifted from the grammar-translation to the communicative approach, from
which it is traced to see how the cultural dimension is given a place in the 2001 revised

9
English language curriculum, in which ‘cultural awareness’ as one of the language
teaching objectives is officially designated. The continuity of the past and present of the
English curriculum development in China traced may serve as a fundamental explanation
of the need to add cultural elements into the English curriculum in China.

Next the focus will be shifted to the analysis of other countries’ language curricula like
America, Canada and Britain in terms of culture teaching so as to get a better
understanding of culture teaching in China through comparative analysis.

Finally it will be proposed that English teaching in China should be for intercultural
communication in the situation of globalization and Byram’s intercultural
communicative competence model will be introduced (ICC), based on which the analysis
of 2001 curriculum in the terms of ICC will be made so as to see if there is any
orientation towards this intercultural perspective.

Chapter 3: Analysis of the literature on language-culture teaching

This chapter presents an account of the relationship between language and culture in
general; questions about the role of culture in language education, the reasons why
culture is included in language teaching and what culture should be taught in the
language classroom are analyzed from both Western and Chinese scholars’ opinions.
Then research on teachers’ thinking and beliefs in language and culture teaching is also
reviewed. This is focused therefore on answering research question 3.

Chapter 4: The research methodology

The fourth chapter discusses the nature of research in education and its main features of
quantitative and qualitative methods. The need for conducting this empirical work in
relation to the aim of the thesis is given. The reason to choose the quantitative research
method as the empirical study of the thesis is presented. Specific procedures such as
questionnaire design, pilot study, the research sample, and the procedure of data

10
collection and treatment of data are introduced. Methodological issues which will arise
during the course of the study are discussed. These issues include such factors as ethics,
reliability, and validity that should be taken into consideration in conducting any
quantitative research.

Chapter 5: Data analysis and results discussion

The fifth chapter presents the data collected from school teachers in Xinjiang and based
on them some findings are drawn and discussed in line with the research questions,
supported by relevant literature. The focus is on question 3 ‘What are school teachers’
perceptions of cultural/intercultural teaching in the language classroom?’ in terms of
language–culture teaching objectives, cultural topics ; ways of culture teaching ; time
distribution for cultural teaching, cultural teaching materials and percentage of cultural
content in the examination and their attitude towards intercultural teaching. Some
interpretations and discussions are given to link data with the discussions in Chapter 3.

Finally the teachers’ general attitudes towards intercultural competence teaching are
analyzed in order to provide a whole picture of teachers’ perceptions. If teachers’
perceptions are positive and they are willing to teach English in this new dimension
supported by the findings, I may safely say that a promising and encouraging basis will
be present to introduce change in teachers’ teaching. The research question 4 ‘Are
teachers’ perceptions an encouraging basis for introducing change in their teaching?’
might be answered.

Chapter 6: Concluding Remarks

As the final chapter of the thesis, this chapter will summarize the whole study and its
implications for practice, and reflect some limitations of the research and possible areas
for future research will be discussed.

In summary, this introductory chapter outlines the background of the study, raises the

11
research questions and gives an overview of all the chapters of the thesis. The next
chapter will review the historical development of English curriculum in terms of cultural
dimension in language education.

12
 Chapter Two

A Brief History of English Language Curriculum

Development at the Secondary School Level in China

2.1 Introduction

The history of China’s post-1949 English curriculum development has often been
discussed in three periods: before, during and after the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976)
since the foundation of China in 1949 (Adamson, 2004; Lam, 2005). In the first period,
the Soviet model of socialist reconstruction was dominant. While the primary and
secondary education system before 1949 (six years of primary school, three of junior
secondary and three of senior secondary) was maintained, university education was
extended from four years to five years. The socialist planning system produced specialist
graduates for the major sectors and the overall educational level of the population was
raised during this time. During the second period, the education system was streamlined
with primary education reduced to five years, secondary education to four years and
higher education to three years. The greatest disruption during the Cultural Revolution
was in higher education as regular universities were closed and academic research was
discredited. The current third period has seen modernization and reform and expansion at
all levels. The system of education changed back to six years of primary school, three of
junior secondary, three of senior secondary and four of higher education. Education for
the first nine years was also made compulsory (Hayhoe, 1991, pp.117-119). My
discussion of English language curriculum development will focus on the third period
(1976 to now) and for the junior secondary school level. The reason for omitting the first
two periods is that learning of English at the secondary level has been promoted mainly
after the Cultural Revolution and because prior to this, Russian was the most important
foreign language (Lam, 2005). The reason for selecting the junior secondary school

13
curriculum arises partly from convenience (my involvement in curriculum training was
at this level), and partly from the importance (the most important innovations in English
curriculum in China have been at this level) (Adamson, 2004). Finally, it is this stage of
schooling, Year 7 - 9 ages 12-15, at which most students study English.

In this chapter, the historical development of English language curriculum will be

examined at the junior secondary level to see how English teaching adapted to
socio-political mandates; how the role of English language has changed; how the
emphasis on the grammar-translation method has been changed to the communicative
approach. I will trace how the cultural dimension is given a place in the 2001- revised
English language curriculum, in which cultural awareness is designated as one of the
language teaching objectives.

Next I will turn to culture teaching again in the context of globalization to examine how
other countries teach culture across the language curriculum especially the United States
of America, Canada and Britain in order to better understand culture teaching in China.
Finally I will propose that English teaching in China should aim for intercultural
communication in the situation of globalization. Byram’s intercultural communicative
competence model will be introduced (ICC), and the 2001 curriculum will be looked at
in the terms of ICC to see if the policy claims are in fact being reached in this
intercultural perspective.

2.2 A brief review of the historical development of the English

curriculum from 1976 to the revised 2001 curriculum

Chinese curriculum reform has gone through countless difficulties and many setbacks
but has also achieved tremendous progress over the past 30 years. As I mentioned above,
my discussion will be focused on the third period that is after the Cultural Revolution

14
from 1976. The English curriculum can be classified into three phases: beginning,
developing and deepening in terms of progress and development in the course of
language education in China’s secondary schools.

Beginning stage (1976-1985)

The political and social turmoil of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-1976)
disrupted instruction in all schools. Students were mobilized as Red Guards and ‘should
not only learn book knowledge, they should also learn industrial production, agricultural
production and military affairs. They should also criticize and repudiate the bourgeoisie.
The length of schooling should be shortened, education should be revolutionized and
domination of our schools and colleges by bourgeois intellectuals should not be tolerated
any longer’ (Mao, 1966: pp.32). Such ideas contributed to the violence that accompanied
the Cultural Revolution. Most schools stopped teaching foreign languages. Many foreign
language teachers were considered bourgeois intellectuals and were accused of spying
for other countries or worshipping everything foreign (Tang Lixing, 1983). Anarchy
erupted throughout the education system.

After Mao’s death in 1976, Hua Guofeng was designated successor and the arrest of the
‘Gang of Four’---the most powerful faction in the national leadership during the later
stages of the Cultural Revolution--- marked the end of a period of political turmoil and
economic isolation for China. Hua Guofeng reactivated a number of economic policies,
most notably the ‘Four Modernizations’, targeting agriculture, science and technology,
defence and industry. In the event, Hua’s tenure of office proved to be just a brief
interregnum and in 1978 Deng Xiaoping who had been ostracised was rehabilitated and
took control as the paramount leader of China and carried on further economic reforms.

Deng Xiaoping, who initiated China's reform and openness drive in the late 1970s,
devoted much emphasis to education. He considered education played a crucial role in

15
the Four Modernizations and ordered college matriculation exams to be resumed upon
his rehabilitation, which gave rise to a nationwide thirst and respect for knowledge and
prompted students to work hard to acquire knowledge. As part of this openness policy,
the ‘national door’ to the outside world was also opened and gained Chinese scholars the
chance to get in touch and exchange academic ideas with foreign countries. In this period
much work was done by scholars to translate and evaluate curriculum theories and
practices from Western countries.

In addition, there was quick recovery of the normal teaching order; design of curriculum
and the construction of textbooks became very urgent tasks after the 10-year standstill in
education. Especially after the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee
in 1978, English teaching in secondary schools became one of the three main subjects,
alongside Chinese and mathematics. The acquisition of a foreign language was valued
once again.

In January 1978, the Ministry of Education issued two syllabuses, one being ‘The
Syllabus for Russian Teaching at Full-time Ten-Year Primary and Secondary schools’,
and the other being ‘The Syllabus for English Teaching at Full-time Ten-year Primary
and Secondary Schools’. (Note: most primary schools and secondary schools adopted the
system of 5 years in primary school and 5 years in secondary schools from 1960 onwards.
The twelve-year school system has gradually been restored from 1980). This early period
of uncertainties so soon after Chairman Mao’s death is reflected in the socio-political
climate, hence the two syllabuses.

Take the English syllabus issued in 1978 as an example; the presence of the influence of
the personal cult towards Mao couldn’t be cast off:
English is a very widely used language throughout the world. In certain aspects,
English is a very important tool: for the international class struggle; for economic

16
 and trade relationships; for cultural, scientific and technological exchanges; and
for the development of international friendship. We have to raise Chairman Mao’s
glorious flag, and carry out the policies initiated by the Party under Deng
Xiaoping’s leadership, so that by the end of this century, we can achieve the Four
Modernizations of industry, science and technology, agriculture and defence and
make China a strong socialist country. To uphold the principle of class
internationalism and to carry out Chairman Mao’s revolutionary diplomacy
effectively, we need to nurture a large number of ‘red and expert’ people (
) proficient in a foreign language and in different disciplines. That’s why we
have to strengthen both primary and secondary teaching.
English syllabus for primary and secondary schools (Beijing: People’s Education
Press, 1978).

The 1978 English language curriculum marked the formal restoration of English in
junior secondary schools on a nation-wide basis, but was fraught with uncertainties in
1977, when work started, because schooling was still in the process of recovery, and the
political situation was unclear. According to Adamson (2004) the socio-economic
climate was one of ‘tentative de-politicization and national economic reconstruction’.
Hence the ‘red and expert’ -- meaning we need those who are ‘to love the Party and
people and to be expert in one’s area of learning’ equation -- was repeated as a
precaution.

With this rationale for the curriculum, new school textbooks were urgently required to
support the new policy of national economic development (Lofstedt, 1980). A
nation-wide centralised series of textbooks for the ten-year secondary school system
English (9 volumes) was compiled by the Ministry of Education and came into use in the
September of 1978 and lasted till 1982. The English in the textbooks was not the English
of any English-speaking country, but the English of China (Xiao, 2001). Textbooks

17
always began with ‘Long live….’and ended with ‘quotations of Chairman Mao’. For
example, in the passage in Series Six Book 2 Lesson 32: ‘We hold high the great banner
of Chairman Mao, and Deng Xiaoping is leading us on a new Long March’. Not a single
text dealt with a foreign theme or foreign culture. To teach with textbooks like these, the
teacher had just to teach the new words, read the text, and translate the text into Chinese.
This was the typical teaching procedure. The features of the curriculum of 1978 are
shown in Table 2.1.

Table 2. 1 Key features of the English language curriculum 1978

1978 English language curriculum

Genesis Commitment to economic modernization after Cultural
Revolution
Role and status of English Means of access to scientific and technical information:
low/medium official status
Role of agencies Writing syllabus and textbooks resources; some
People’s Education Press: participation in writing syllabus and textbooks resources
consultant / teachers negligible input; some arbitration over disputes about the
textbook content
Progress Team formed to write syllabus and textbooks under
pressure of time
Syllabus Stresses the balance between knowledge and usage of
language, advocates integration of political, moral and
language education
Resources Six textbooks (series six)
Organization Sentence and dialogue drills---reading passage—grammar
exercises; traditional sequence of grammatical items
Discourse Progression from weak to strong realism
Linguistic Components Phonetic alphabet; 1250 vocabulary items, established
grammar items
Intended pedagogy Mainly audiolingualism and structural approach: some
grammar-translation
Political and moral Strong presence of moral messages; moderate presence of
messages political message
(Cited from Adamsom, 2004: 133)
From this table we can see that English is used as a tool to access scientific and technical
information. Language teaching aims to train people to be ‘reds and experts’ serving the

18
purpose of the Four Modernizations. The official status of English is low, according to
Adamson. The emphasis is still on political and moral education. There is no
interpretation of a cultural dimension in the beginning stage because the focus of
language teaching is placed on the acquisition of language structures through the
grammar-translation approach and on the Chinese perspective and politics, with the
result that culture boundaries were set in the school textbooks, and this caused students
to be unable to understand other nations’ cultures and the point of view of their culture.

After a four-year trial in schools, feedback from teachers led to the revision of this
English syllabus. Teachers complained that the books were too difficult to teach,
primarily because of the excessive political content in language instruction (Xiao, 2001).

By 1982, the revision of the syllabus was carried out by the editors from the People’s
Education Press (PEP) in consultation with specialists from Beijing Foreign Languages
Institute. Based on the 1978 syllabus, the PEP made changes to the stated aims of
English instruction. The 1982 curriculum had two specific aims: to correct the
orientation of the previous curriculum, which was viewed as problematic; and to prepare
an educated elite to play a pioneering role in economic modernization in the context of
the Open Door Policy, which had raised many Chinese people’s heightened interest in
interacting with foreigners, and had led to a blossoming interest in spoken as well as
written English. Therefore the revision work of syllabus both oral English and Western
culture are taken into account. The features of 1982 syllabus are shown in the following:

Table 2.2 Key features of the English language curriculum 1982

1982 English language curriculum

Genesis Development of multi-track education, especially the
establishment of key secondary schools; supporting

19
 economic modernization in a period of low politicization
and high official status of English
Role and status of English International transfer and communication; access to higher
education and lucrative employment; high official status
Role of agencies PEP: Designers and writers of syllabus; feedback and advice;
consultant / teachers piloting, feedback and advice
Progress Research into English language teaching in China and
abroad; team established to develop syllabus and materials,
piloting in some schools;
Syllabus Stress communication, lists targets in pronunciation,
vocabulary, grammar, provides hints on pedagogy
Resources Textbooks, cassette tapes for reading passages and practice
drills, teacher’s books, wall charts
Organization Sentence-dialogue-drills---reading
passage---vocabulary—grammar exercises
Discourse Progression from weak to strong realism
Linguistic Components Phonetic alphabet; 1250 vocabulary items, traditional
sequence of grammar items
Intended pedagogy Predominantly Structural Approach: with
Audiolingualism, Grammar-translation and Functional
Notional Approach
Political and moral Strong presence of moral messages; weak presence of
messages political message
(Cited from Adamsom, 2004: 152 – emphasis added to identify significant changes
from the previous table)

From the italicized phrases in the above table we can see some changes have taken place
compared with 1978 curriculum. The 1982 curriculum was drafted during a period of
relatively low politicization and the status of English rose at this time because a long
established closed-door policy came to an end. Chinese people began to have contacts
with foreign countries. Scholars had more chances to get in touch and exchange
academic ideas with foreign countries. In this period research into English language
teaching done by scholars was mainly translating and evaluating curriculum theories and
practices from western countries and as Adamson noted, the research into English
language teaching was not only focused on China but also extended to abroad. Under
such circumstances, the 1982 draft version was published and distributed for feedback to

20
specialists in tertiary institutions and teachers in different parts of the country. The
message from teachers was a request for more conversational dialogues. This message
implied that English language teaching should shift from the acquisition of language
knowledge to communicative skills. The idea of learning language for communication
was stressed in the 1982 curriculum while the 1978 curriculum emphasized the balance
between knowledge and usage of language, integration of moral, political education with
language education (see Table 2.1). A well known statement of three orientations by
Deng Xiaoping was introduced into the syllabus (‘education towards modernization,
towards the outside world and the future’), which served to legitimize current trends in
education that might be viewed as politically sensitive, such as the move in the English
curriculum towards more listening and speaking to facilitate communication with
foreigners. Though there is no explicit statement about culture teaching, the idea of
communication with the outside world is clearly addressed. The shift of teaching
approach from the predominant Structural Approach presented in the 1978 curriculum to
the Functional/Notional Approach shown in the 1982 curriculum is also evident and
supports language learning for communication with more emphasis on listening and
speaking practice in the classroom. Further proof can be seen from the preface to the new
syllabus which concentrates more on the economic benefits of studying English:

Foreign language is an important tool for learning cultural and scientific knowledge;
for acquiring information in different fields from around the world, and for
developing international communication. ‘Education has to be oriented towards
modernization, to the outside world and the future.’ Our country is a modern socialist
nation, with a high level of civilization and democracy; we have to raise the cultural
and scientific quality of all people in the country. We need to nurture a large number
of experts who are goal-oriented and ethical, possessing culture, discipline and, to
different extents, competence in various aspects of foreign languages. Under these
circumstances, the value of foreign languages as important tools becomes greater.

21
 Therefore, foreign languages are listed as a basic requirement in our country’s
secondary schooling (Beijing: People’s Education Press, 1986: 24 translated by the
researcher).

In common with the 1978 syllabus, the 1986 syllabus sets out general learning targets
and rationale, teaching principles, and specific linguistic components to be covered at
each level. The learning doesn’t contain a political dimension, unlike the syllabus for the
previous curriculum, but stresses developing competence in English as the priority and,
at the same time, declares it is important to provide students with good moral education
(PEP, 1986:2-3). The teaching principles stress the primacy of oral language, as the basis
for competence in listening, speaking, reading and writing. This emphasis on oral-aural
English indicates that the intended teaching technique had departed gradually from the
Grammar-Translation method and reflected more audio-lingual approaches. English
skills were thus perceived as a conduit for acquiring skilful expertise and for dealing with
foreigners.

This period was considered as the beginning of the research on curriculum reform in
China.

Developing Stage (1985-1993)

Educational documents like the Decision on Educational System Reform issued by the
Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in 1985 and A Nine-Year
Compulsory Education of the People’s Republic of China enacted in 1986 quickened the
pace of curriculum reform. At the same time an Evaluating Committee of Primary and
Middle School Teaching Materials was set up and the Evaluation Criteria of Primary and
Middle School Teaching Materials were formulated. A very good opportunity was
provided for those who were interested in compiling textbooks and they were greatly
encouraged by these openings. Many scholars approached this subject from different

22
angles. The reform of the curriculum construction turned out to be one of the major
concerns of society. Many discussions were held on whether textbooks should reflect the
trend of the times, and the national and local conditions (China Education Daily,
1985) .There were a number of reforms between 1985-1993: for example the syllabus for
English teaching in full-time junior secondary schools and the syllabus for English
teaching in full-time senior secondary schools, both of which were revised to follow
communicative language teaching theory. The clear guideline is provided in the preface
of the syllabus:

A foreign language is an important tool for interacting with other countries and plays
an important role in promoting the development of the national and the world
economy, science and culture. In order to meet the needs of our Open Door Policy and
to accelerate socialist modernization, efforts should be made to enable as many as
possible to acquire command of one or more foreign languages. (English Syllabus,
Beijing: People’s Education Press, 1993: 12 – researcher’s translation)

In keeping with this guideline, the objectives of English teaching in the syllabus for
junior secondary schools were:
to enable students to gain basic knowledge of English and communicative
competence by training in listening, speaking, reading, and writing, to form good
study habits and to lay a basic foundation for future study.
While the objectives for full-time senior secondary school English teaching were:
to reinforce the students’ basic knowledge gained during the compulsory lower
secondary English learning, develop their basic skills in listening, speaking,
reading and writing, foster students’ ability to carry out some basic communication
in English in both oral or written forms, while giving attention to students’ ability
to read so as to enable students to obtain some ability to study on their own, and
lay a good foundation in real earnest for patriotism, socialism and so on and

23
 promote the understanding of the country whose language is learnt; develop
students’ intelligence, promote their ability to think, observe, notice, imagine,
associate and so on (Syllabus for English teaching at full-time senior middle
schools, 1993:17 the 1st edition, - the researcher’s translation).

It is obvious from the above two teaching objectives that a cultural dimension of
language teaching can be noted in the communicative approach asserted in the document,
for example, phrases like ‘to promote the understanding of the country whose language
is learnt’ and ‘to foster students’ ability to carry out some basic communication in
English’ can be interpreted as allowing the development of students’ competence in
using language they are learning and to cultivate their understanding of the target country
and its people . These two objectives can be considered as a breakthrough in terms of
cultural teaching in Chinese foreign language teaching. Following the two groups of
teaching objectives, another new series, co-authored with Longman (Britain), was
written and put into use from 1993. The key features of the 1993 syllabus are shown in
the following table:

Table 2.3 Key features of the English language curriculum from 1993

1993 English language curriculum

Genesis Nine-year compulsory education; strengthening of English
language teaching ; national economic modernization;
strengthening of the Open Door Policy; decentralization of
decision-making
Role and status of English Economic development---International transfer and
communication; access to higher education and lucrative
employment; very high official status
Role of agencies PEP: Collaboration in researching and producing new textbooks
consultant / teachers with foreign agency
Progress Research into English language teaching in China and
abroad; collaboration with foreign publisher, specialists and
teachers; extensive piloting; teacher training; continuing
revision in the light of post-implementation feedback
Syllabus Stress communicative competence, lists of function/notions

24
 as well as vocabulary and grammar
Resources Textbooks, teacher’s books, workbooks Reading practice
books, cassettes, wall pictures, videos, CD-ROMs, etc
Organization Integrated topic-based , cyclical progression with regular
revision
Discourse Anecdotes, stories, everyday dialogues, scientific and
cultural passages
Linguistic Components Focus on realistic oral skills; functions, notions, traditional
arrangement of grammatical components
Intended pedagogy Eclectic: Structural-Functional/Notional ,with some
Audiolingualism
Political and moral Some moral messages; very weak political content
messages
(Cited from Adamsom, 2004, pp.171 – with italics and bold emphasis added to show
new features)

By the highlighted parts above in italics and bold, it is clear that Adamson has identified
more emphasis on the use of language for purposeful communication and the
development of students’ communicative competence. Some phrases like ‘International
transfer and communication; communicative competence; cultural passages’ are
strongly indicative that the key concept of language teaching is for communication and
aims to develop students’ communicative competence. I have also added emphasis to
new elements which Adamson does not mention, notably the presence of cultural
passages. The shift from language structures/rules to a Functional/Notional Approach to
foreign language teaching can be seen, emphasizing the importance of contextualizing
features and pragmatic intentions that govern language in use. This is a novel approach
for China recalled by Liu Daoyi, the leader of the working team of English syllabus and
also Deputy Chief Editor of the PEP:

It is the first time in the history of EFL in China that actual use of the language for
communication should be placed in such a prominent position. This indicates that
schools will no longer teach students about the language but teach them how to
use it (Liu, 1995: 8).

25
The official role of English is highlighted by the following statement from the 1993
syllabus:
A foreign language is an important tool for making contact with other countries
and plays an important role in promoting the development of the national and
world economy, science and culture. For the purpose of meeting the needs of our
Open Door Policy and speeding up socialist modernization, efforts should be
made to enables as many people as possible to acquire certain command of one or
more foreign languages (PEP, 1993: 1 – emphasis added).

The phrase of ‘speeding up socialist modernization’ is expressive of this period of

curriculum innovation.

Deepening Stage (1994-1999)

The Open Door Policy increased people’s dealings with English speakers and was a
further significant boost to both the status and role of English. Language learning also
became more popularized by increased access to electronic goods and to various forms
of mass media in English produced either domestically or imported from overseas. It is
estimated that, in 1995, about 50 million junior secondary students were learning English,
350,000 were studying Russian and 160,000 Japanese (Liu, 1995). The learning of
English was compulsory for all tertiary students, and led to the College English Test, a
nationwide examination which attracts around 5.5 million candidates annually (Yang,
2000).

A series of major reforms in education were undertaken from the early 1990s onwards.
Two policies had a particular impact on the development of the English language
curriculum. The first aimed at the provision of mass education, as there were some areas
in which China had yet to achieve this goal, which had social equity implications. The
Nine-Year Compulsory Education Law was promulgated in 1986. The second was the
policy of decentralization that was designed to cater for the specific educational needs of

26
different localities. The impact on the English language curriculum was the wider range
of teaching and learning situations that it would have to serve, and the opportunities for
agencies at a local level to develop and publish their own textbooks in competition with
those produced by the PEP, although the PEP remained responsible for publishing the
syllabuses.

The reform programme was multi-faceted at this stage. Some issues it addressed were :
how to make compulsory educational courses link with senior secondary school courses;
how to critically and justly reflect objective needs of the society, and needs of students;
how to deal with the relation between the social values of the course and the values of the
education of individual (Liu, 1995). The course construction of senior secondary school
had been one of the problems in this stage with respect to theory research and practice
implementation. In 1995 the national working conference on senior secondary school
education was held by the Ministry of Education, at which the new course plan, new
syllabus of each subject and new teaching materials were discussed. Two years later in
1997, the Ministry of Education decided on a pilot experiment of the new course
programme of senior secondary school that was first conducted in two provinces and a
city in China and gradually then expanded nationwide. This was evaluated by a
professional organization and then implemented nationwide. This also reflected rapid
development of academic research on curriculum reform generally. The research
concerning the development of curriculum, its theoretical basis, features, position,
function, aims, content, and teaching materials, was carried out. The final important
result of this multi-dimensional research in this stage was the issuing of the 2001 revised
curriculum to which I will devote special consideration in the next section.

After the brief discussion of curriculum development over three decades, it can be seen
that English teaching at the secondary level had made a tremendous step in terms of
teaching objectives from the highly politicized programme of training ‘reds and experts’

27
to developing more capable individuals with knowledge and ability ‘to think, observe,
notice, imagine, associate’ and ‘to foster students’ ability to carry out some basic
communication in English’ expressed in the 1993 curriculum. This is essentially a move
from knowledge transmission to knowledge acquisition and skills; from
grammar-translation to the advent of a communicative teaching approach. The cultural
dimension in language education has not been explicitly stressed in the curriculum until
the recent times in response to the Ministry of Education’s release of an Action Plan for
Rejuvenating Education in the 21st Century (MEC, 1999). The reformed curriculum
came into being in 2001. It is in this new curriculum that cultural awareness is, for the
first time, officially declared. A detailed discussion of the 2001 revised curriculum will
be presented in the following section.

The 2001 English curriculum

The unified curriculum, syllabuses and textbooks were imposed nationwide. Many
criticisms have been levelled at this approach (Bao, 2002, Liu, 2003). It was felt that this
practice not only ignored the diversity of regional needs and developments but also
stifled local innovation. Nationally drawn-up curricula, syllabuses and textbooks had
been used to ensure educational equality and control over the quality of education in the
past, but there were widening differences in the pace of social and economic
development between different parts of the country. One of the important measures taken
in the reform of education was to decentralize decision making and allow considerable
regional autonomy in exploring and implementing new approaches to teaching and
learning. With this new policy, curriculum development was staged by education
authorities in seven economically developed provinces like Shanghai and Zhejiang,
where local innovation was permitted in curricula, syllabuses and textbooks with the aim
of pioneering curriculum changes in basic education and providing relevant experiences
for later possible curriculum reform throughout China (Ding, 1997), while the
production of primary and secondary curricula, syllabuses and textbooks for most of the

28
country remained centralized. In 1998, Shanghai set up its Curriculum and Teaching
Materials Reform Committee (SCTMRC) and began its own curriculum reform. One
outcome of this reform was a draft curriculum for both the nine-year and senior
secondary phases. After years of trial, both curricula were revised and finalized
(SCTMRC, 1998a, 1998b). By 2000, nearly 85% of all the primary schools in Shanghai
offered English classes from Year One (Teaching Research Institute, 2000). Beginning
with the autumn semester of 2001, all the remaining schools also started to teach English
from Year One. The popularization of ELT throughout primary schooling is a major
measure taken to ensure that by the time students will have graduated from senior
secondary school, they will have strong competence in English. Encourage by
Shanghai’s success, the Ministry of Education (2000a) issued guidelines which
recommend that primary schools at municipal and county levels should start to offer
English classes from Year Three from the autumn of 2001. As a matter of fact, some
primary schools in large cities and developed areas had started to teach English years
earlier (Wu, 2001). Since 1994, there had been an annual increase of more than a million
primary English learners. Currently, there are eight million primary school pupils
learning English as a school subject for two to three hours a week (China Education
Daily, 2001). Introducing English into primary schools is not a temporary policy but
rather a long-term goal and an enterprise aiming to enhance the cultural and educational
quality of all citizens and promote quality-oriented education. The Chinese government
issued two documents on quality-oriented education and the reform of basic education in
1999 and 2001.

Also in 2001, Beijing Normal University Press published New English Curriculum
Standards (pilot version), which is taken as the programmatic document for basic
English education. In this document the overall objectives of English education are
stated as: English education should be oriented towards the development of students’
comprehensive language competence at the basic education stage. The foundation of the

29
comprehensive language competence relies on students’ language skills, language
knowledge, emotion and attitude, learning strategy and culture awareness. The language
knowledge and the language skills are the basis of language use in a comprehensive way.
Cultural awareness is the assurance of appropriate use of language. Emotion and attitude
are important factors which affect the students’ study and development. Learning
strategies are the guarantee of promoting learning efficiency, developing an ability of
autonomous learning. These five parts together are to promote the development of
comprehensive language competence. (New English Curriculum Standards, 2001)

The definition of cultural awareness stated in the above document is no more than the
usual definition of communicative competence, and a more detailed definition of culture
awareness found in the literature will show that this is a very narrow definition (see
chapter 3).

The aim of NECS is not overtly political and economic, merely stipulating that
comprehensive language competence should be developed and the study of English also
should be expanded to include aspects of foreign culture. The importance of this change
will be elaborated in the following discussion.

2.3. Globalization and English teaching for intercultural

communication

The status of English and consequently of ELT has changed radically over the past half
century, to arrive in the 21st century as the dominant language in global economic,
information and popular media spheres. This status is greatly strengthened by the fact
that the international communication system operates primarily in English. The
electronic revolution of the 20th century has contributed further to this position of
English with advantage given to academic communities that use English. It is the main
language of books, academic journals, the media, international sports, and entertainment,

30
and is the international language of aviation and maritime control. English is either the
single or co-official language of every major international organization, and 80% of all
information stored in the world’s electronic retrieval systems is in English
(Altbach,1998). Graddol (2006: 12) claims that ‘the phenomenon of English being a
global language lies at the heart of globalization’. We have been witnessing the global
flow of economics and cultures in the global village. Therefore, there have been
increasing interdependence and interconnectedness among nations and people as well.

No other language but English has spread around the globe so extensively and a
significant increase in the use of English and people professionally involved in English
language teaching in 90 countries and the impressive speed of expansion are shown by a
British Council project in 1995. Accordingly, more than 93% of respondents to the
British Council project agree or strongly agree with the statement ‘The global market for
English language teaching and learning will increase over the next 25 years’ (Graddol,
2006, Crystal, 1997). This is especially the case in China, where the proliferation of
English learning materials has been overwhelming and English teaching has become a
thriving business. English has now assured its status as a global language, because it is
now universally recognized as an unrivalled common language of international
communication, being used in all spheres (Phillipson, 1992).

As a result of this growing trend of internationalization/globalization, English becomes

today the world’s most widespread lingua franca (Crystal, 1997), a necessity for
communication because a shared language is an important bridge for people from one
nation to communicate with people from other nations. Graddol’s (2006) assessment
shows that about half the world’s population will know English by the middle of this
century.

With its further opening to the outside world, China’s communication with other

31
countries has become more frequent. We face and enjoy an endless flow of foreign
investments, information, and global fashion, etc. Anyone may have an account in an
overseas bank where she/he can deposit and withdraw her/his money within one day.
Anyone may stay at home while joining a distance learning class from another side of the
globe. Anyone may be skiing on the top of the Alps while managing a business over the
internet. These amazing experiences are widely considered as evidence of globalization.

In fact, globalization in China is not new. Perhaps the term is new, but the concept has
been a part of human history from the earliest time. Zheng He was an early pioneer in
globalization. His seven voyages in the early 15th century from China across Asia and to
Africa opened trade, migration and other activities between China and some 35 countries.
Until the 21st century in China the evidence of globalization has been seen continually.
The success of holding the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, joining the World Trade
Organization, hosting Asian Pacific Economic Co-operation forums has made China
heard by the world.

All these achievements show that China is ready to find her place in the world. The
world is coming closer to us. Look at the younger generation who love to eat KFC and
McDonald rather than Chinese dumplings; they love to drink Coca-Cola rather than tea;
they love to see Hollywood films rather than domestic movies. They even pay more
attention to celebrating Christmas than the Spring Festival. We may ask if we are losing
ourselves during this globalization. Our answer is that our civilization has charmed the
world. The great success of the movie ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ in the Oscar
awards has made Western people take notice of Chinese movies as well as Chinese
Kongfu. The fascinating Peking Opera, the amazing Chinese acrobatics, and the magic
of Chinese acupuncture make people all over the world admire Chinese culture. We need
globalization. Globalization needs us too. Therefore globalization implies two-way
communication. We not only contribute to the outside world, but also clarify our sense of

32
self, through knowing more about people around us (Girder, Smith & Ke Jianghua,
2004).

Because of international communication, communication is emerging as the supreme

value of language teaching (Cameron, 2002). Using English as global language means
seeing learners as potential global communicators (Cortazzi, 2001). If we consider who
we are communicating with in today’s international communication, a shift regarding the
cultural dimension in ELT seems unavoidable; cultural contents about other countries
apart from Anglo-American must be taken into account and will start to play a more
relevant role in today’s intercultural communication.

There is extensive research into theory and practice of foreign language teaching and
intercultural communication in Western countries. At present, research in this area in
China is booming. More and more Chinese scholars, as I will discuss later in the
literature review, realize the significance of our national effort for English teaching is
that it should be directed to intercultural communication because English teaching not
only imparts language knowledge but also trains students’ skills of communication and
application of English in intercultural communication. Students learning the
pronunciation and grammar rules of a foreign language and mastering a quantity of
words does not mean that they can communicate successfully with this foreign language.
Both participants in communication produce misunderstanding, and communication will
fail if they can not go negotiate culture through intercultural communication (Hu, 2001).
Pragmatic breakdown can not be treated as a grammar fault. A person who can speak a
foreign language fluently will be thought short of courtesy or unfriendly according to his
use of language. His faults may be attributed not to the absence of language ability but to
rudeness or hostility (Behler, 1986). Therefore education in language-and-culture for
intercultural communication is a necessary new insight dimension in foreign language
education in China.

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2.4 Cultural teaching – a comparison

The integration of culture into second/foreign language curriculum has progressed

rapidly in recent years. Standards of cultural competence and goals for culture learning
are currently an integral part of instructional programmes at all levels in Western
countries. The aims of cultural teaching in the foreign language curriculum are well
documented in some countries, and there is little doubt that educators would agree that
culture teaching in the foreign language classroom is an inseparable part of achieving
intercultural understanding and intercultural competence. The reason is that bringing a
foreign language to the classroom means connecting learners to a world that is culturally
different from their own (Sercu, 2005). Therefore, all foreign language educators are
expected to exploit this potential and promote the acquisition of intercultural competence
in their learners, who are taught intercultural communicative competence as well as the
acquisition of communicative competence in a foreign language. In order to get a better
view of intercultural competence through language teaching in a global perspective, I
would like to explore the issue in some English speaking countries and discuss China
against this background to see what culture teaching concepts are contained in the
English curriculum.

2.4.1 Cultural teaching concepts in the language curriculum in the United

States of America

The United States carried out a new wave of educational reform nearly at the same time
as China in the 1990s. American educational reform is characterized by the standards
movement or standards-based reform. According to the Goals 2000, Educational
American Act, signed by President Bill Clinton in 1994:

By the year 2000, all students will leave grades four, eight and twelve having

34
 demonstrated competency over challenging subject matter including English,
mathematics, science, foreign language, civics and government, economics, arts,
history, and geography, and every school in America will ensure that all students learn
to use their minds well, so they may be prepared for responsible citizenship, further
learning, and productive employment in the nation’s modern economy. (US
Department of Education www.ed.gov/index.jhtml)

With this statement made by Clinton and hard work done by the foreign language
professionals and a general social awareness of urgent improvement in American foreign
language teaching in 1996, a collaborative effort produced the Standards for Foreign
Language Learning (SFLL): Preparing for the 21st Century, also called American Five
Cs Standards. For the sake of convenience, people prefer to call this document the Five
Cs Standards for short.

What is ‘the Five Cs’? ‘C’ is the first letter of five key words of the statement, which
are identified as the five goal areas of foreign language education in the United States.
They are Communication, Connections, Cultures, Comparisons and Communities. Each
goal contains two or three content standards, eleven in total. These standards describe the
knowledge and abilities that all students should acquire by the end of their high school
education. Each standard is followed by a brief discussion to further explicate and
illustrate the standard and to define its place within the goal area. Essentially the five Cs
mean that students should communicate in languages other than English; gain knowledge
and understanding of other cultures; connect with other disciplines and acquire
information; learn to compare and develop insights into the nature of language and
culture; and learn to participate in multilingual communities in the United States and
around the world after school foreign language learning. The emphasis and focus are on
developing competency and proficiency in the target language. Now I want to focus my
discussion on the second C-Culture.

35
‘Culture’ is generally understood, according to the Standards, to include the
philosophical perspectives, the behavioural practices, and the products, both tangible and
intangible, of a society. The three components of culture are closely interrelated
because language is the primary vehicle for expressing cultural perspectives and
participating in social practices, and the study of a language provides opportunities for
students to develop insights in a culture and cultures are expressed through that language.
It is important that students become skilled observers and analysts of other cultures.

The Cultures Goal includes two standards. The first standard requires that students
should demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between the practices and
perspectives of the cultures studied (SFLL, p.46). Understanding perspectives, that is the
meanings, attitudes, values, and ideas of the culture being studied, is the ultimate goal for
learners of the world’s languages. Perspectives are the common thread in the two
standards that fashion the culture goal. Cultural practices refer to patterns of behaviour
accepted by a society and deal with aspects of culture such as rites of passage, the use of
forms of discourse, and the use of social space. They represent the knowledge of ‘what to
do, when and where’.
It is considered important to understand the relationship between these practices and the
underlying perspectives that represent the cultural view of the world. This standard
focuses on the practices that are derived from the traditional ideas, attitudes and values
(perspectives) of a culture. The second standard asks students to demonstrate an
understanding of the relationship between the products and perspectives of the cultures
being studied (ibid, p.47). Cultural products may be tangible (e.g., paintings, a cathedral,
a piece of literature) or intangible (e.g., an oral tale, a dance, a system of education).
Whatever the form of the product, its presence within the culture is required or justified
by the underlying beliefs and values (perspectives) of that culture.

36
Though there is no concrete and detailed cultural content specified the Five Cs Standards,
the cultural instruction is more flexible and goal-directed to the perspectives, practices
and products of various cultures being studied. Therefore as a country of multilingual
and multicultural communities, America gives cultural education ain especially
important status in its foreign language education. It can be concluded that the US has a
rather elaborate and systematic approach to culture teaching in foreign language
education. Culture is a key word for foreign language instruction (Phillips, 2003).

2.4.2 Cultural teaching concepts in the language curriculum in Canada

Canada is officially bilingual in French and English, but it is also a multilingual,
multicultural and multiracial country. There are many small communities that maintain a
distinctive culture and language. This special mosaic structure exerts a profound
influence on education. For example, the needs of French speaking children in Quebec or
Ontario have been on the educational agenda for some time. Classes which include
children from dozens of different language backgrounds have become the norm for
growing numbers of schools in Canada. The national identity, culture and heritage etc
have resulted in an acceptance of a Canada itself united by diversities. Hodgettes (1968:
34) stated in his research ‘…it is closely geared to the pluralistic, multiracial nature of
our society; it recognizes that Canada is not only a North American country but also is
becoming more involved with the world community of nations’. The country has to face
the challenge brought to education to be able to adjust the school systems to meet the
changing needs of society.

For pedagogical reasons, it is recognized the quality of civic life can be greatly improved
through education and young people should develop an intelligent, knowledgeable love
for their own country and appreciation for other’s value systems and cultures through
language education. Language is a fundamental element of identity and culture. Students
need language skills. For many years English was exclusively taught in schools for

37
children from multi-backgrounds in Canada. The increasing linguistic and cultural
diversity provides many opportunities for cultural enrichment and global education for
all students. Because of the variety of linguistic and cultural backgrounds that students
have, schools need to provide language programmes to ensure that all students develop
the level of proficiency in English required for success at schools
(http://www.concordia.ca/info/).

Owing to this characteristic of Canadian society, I will focus on the language curriculum
of Canada to explore the cultural aspect of teaching. After searching for a National
Curriculum in Canada, I discovered that in Canada there is no federal department of
education and no integrated national system of education. Within the federal system of
shared powers, Canada’s Constitution Act of 1867 provides that ‘In and for each
province, the legislature may exclusively make laws in relation to Education’. Therefore
departments or ministries of education in each province are responsible for organization,
delivery, and assessment of education at the elementary and secondary levels within their
boundaries. I chose the Ontario curriculum as an example to discuss.

The Ontario curriculum (2001) of English as a Second Language (ESL) and English
Literacy Development (ELD) offers Levels 1-5 for ESL and ELD courses. Before I move
on to discuss this, an explanation why there are two types of English (ESL and ELD) and
who they are for, is needed so as to clarify these terms. Students who have immigrated to
Canada, students from Canadian communities in which a language other than English is
spoken, and students who speak a language other than English at home may come to
school with a limited understanding of English. These students are usually proficient
users of their own languages but require assistance to learn English, the language of
instruction in Ontario schools. English as a second language (ESL) instruction is
designed to provide such assistance. Students who have not developed literacy skills in
their first language because of limited access to schooling or who come from

38
communities where Standard English is the official language but where other varieties of
English are in common use may also require help in developing the English-language
proficiency they need to succeed in school. English literacy development (ELD)
instruction is designed to help such students to improve their skills in reading, writing,
and oral communication in English (http://www.edu.gov.on.ca.). Students in any grade
may be placed in appropriate ESL or ELD courses, which are intended for students
whose first language is a language other than English or is a variety of English
significantly different from that used for instruction in Ontario schools.

There are two expectations identified for each course which describe the knowledge and
skills that students are expected to develop and demonstrate in their class work, on tests,
and in various other activities on which their achievement is assessed and evaluated. Two
sets of expectations are listed for each strand of each course. The overall expectations
describe in general terms the knowledge and skills that students are expected to
demonstrate by the end of each course. The specific expectations describe the expected
knowledge and skills in greater detail.
The content in each of the ESL and ELD courses is organized into four interrelated
strands, or broad areas of learning: Listening and Speaking, Reading, Writing, and
Socio-cultural Competence and Media Literacy. Effective instructional activities blend
expectations from the four strands in order to provide English language learners with the
kinds of experiences that promote meaningful learning and that help students recognize
how language and literacy skills in the four strands overlap and strengthen one another.
The programme at all levels is designed to develop a range of essential skills in the four
interrelated strands, built on a solid foundation of knowledge of the language
conventions of standard English and incorporating the use of analytical, critical, and
metacognitive thinking skills (Ontario curriculum, 2001: 18). My analysis will focus on
the last strand of social-cultural competence and media literacy. I choose ESL and ELD
Level 4 as a representative to achieve a consistent age level (Grades 8-9) in my

39
discussion.

The Socio-cultural Competence and Media Literacy strand has four overall expectations,
in ESL and ELD which is identical in content as follows:
Overall expectations: By the end of this course students will:
1. Use English and non-verbal communication strategies appropriately in a variety of
social contexts;
2. Demonstrate an understanding of the rights and responsibilities of Canadian
Citizenship, and of the contributions of diverse groups to Canadian society;
3. Demonstrate knowledge of and adaptation to the Ontario education system;
4. Demonstrate an understanding of, interpret, and create a variety of media works.

Specific expectations:
Using English in socially and culturally appropriate ways
Developing awareness of Canada, citizenship, and diversity
Adapting to school life in Ontario
Developing media knowledge and skills

From the above expectations of the social-cultural communication strand, it can be seen
that students’ ability to interact appropriately at different levels of formality; the ability
to understand and use the different language forms and observe the behavioural norms
appropriately in a wide variety of situations are emphasized. In socio-cultural teaching,
students are encouraged to value and maintain their own linguistic and cultural identities.
As mentioned before these two curricula are for students who are in Grade 8-9. The
development of their linguistic and cultural competences in English should not be at the
expense of their own language and cultures (Ontario curriculum, 2001: 4). Cultural
awareness is placed in the understanding of Canada diversity as a new citizen. Therefore
social-cultural teaching in the secondary language education is very important and

40
considered as a critical factor for students from a multitude of cultural and linguistic
backgrounds.

The aims of learning languages and cultures presented here are determined within the
diversity agenda of Canadian multiculturalism and multilingualism. As we shall see
below, this element is missing from the Chinese documents even though China is also an
ethnically and linguistically diverse a country with 55 minority nationalities and over 80
languages (Xiao Hong, 1998: 221). Xinjiang , where the current research context is set, is
also an area of 13 ethnic minorities living together and this issue of a diversity agenda
which should have been considered in the national curriculum design is made evident by
this comparison with the Ontario curriculum. Owing to the fact that the national
curriculum is used all over the country, as Lam argues (2003), it might be feasible for
China to deal with macro-level policy, but it is much harder to justify a unified and
homogeneous approach when discussing the individual histories of minorities. This is
because at the micro-level of individual interactions and experiences with languages, one
might reasonably expect data indicating the presence of crossing, code switching and
perhaps even the emergence of fused lects (Lam, 2003: 56). Therefore the macro-policy
may result in some problems during the application of the unified curriculum, especially
in the ethnic minority areas in terms of syllabus, textbooks, trilingual and tricultural
learning (first language, Chinese and English), criteria for their linguistic competence
etc., which really deserve my future effort to study because Xinjiang is the largest
minority province in China. This analysis of the Ontario curriculum reveals a new area
for future research: to develop a localized curriculum for minority students, which is not
my major concern in this study. This becomes all the more significant because of the
disturbances which are taking place as this is being written (July 2009).

41
2.4.3 Cultural teaching concepts in the language curriculum in England and

Wales
The national Curriculum for England and Wales is a part of a major Education Reform
Act passed in 1988, nearly ten years earlier than in China. It specifies 10 levels of
attainment in subjects, usually covering compulsory education from 5-16, but for foreign
languages covering only the 11-16 age-range. Each subject is specified in terms of
‘attainment targets’ which for languages are the four skills of listening, reading, writing
and speaking, each skill being further specified in terms of ten levels.

The major innovation of the national curriculum was the introduction of the concept of
‘cultural awareness’ and recommendations for a comparative methodology. In this new
curriculum, the language teaching objectives are added to the established list of
educational purposes. One purpose of language teaching is ‘to develop pupils’
understanding of themselves and their own culture’ (DES, 1990: 3). As we shall see
below, there is nothing of this kind in the Chinese documents – no reference to own
culture. The concept of ‘cultural awareness’ in this document is defined as ‘the
promotion of understanding of and respect for other cultures…one of the most important
aims of modern language studies’ (ibid, 36). It continues to emphasize the concept of
‘cultural awareness’ in a very succinct way:

A growing awareness of the culture of the people who speak the language of study is
intrinsic to the learning of it and it is in this context that the areas of experience have
been defined in the second part of the programmes of study. Without the cultural
dimension, successful communication is often difficult (…) comparison between
learner’s own way of life and that of the other language community are an essential
means to better understanding of both. (DES, 1990: 37 – emphasis in italics added).

If I read between the lines of italicised part, it is not difficult to find that ‘the area of

42
experience’ is an attempt to specify something related to students’ life for them to
experience which is essential for language and culture learning in lower secondary
education. The last two sentences clearly express the importance of culture teaching in
language education and understanding of one’s own life and others’ by means of
comparison of different cultures.

The detailed descriptions of the ‘area of experience’ are provided for key stages as
following (cited from Byram & Morgan, 1994: 75-77)
Area A. Everyday activities
During each key stage, pupils should have regular opportunities to explore in the target
language topics which deal with activities they are likely to engage in at home and at
school. This should include the language of the classroom.
Examples of topics: home life, shopping, going out, leisure activities and sports, school
life….
Area B. Personal and Social Life
…topics which deal with aspects of their personal lives, relationships with family,
friends and others, social attitudes, customs and institutions which are relevant to them
Examples of topics: self, family and friends, health and fitness, major institutions
(schools, hospitals, clubs, etc), personal, teenage and social attitudes towards religion,
politics and society (including stereotyping and equal opportunities).
C. The World around Us
…topics which deal with the physical environment including their own home, home
town or region and environmental themes at home and abroad.
Examples of topics: home town and region, weather and climate, the man-made
environment, home region compared with a region abroad.
D. The World of Education, Training and Work
…topics which deal with education, training, employment and careers; the world of
business and industry.

43
Examples of topics: school subjects, courses and further study or training, personal
experience of the world of work, personal finance, unemployment.
E. The World of Communications
…topics which deal with the various means of communication, including the use of
information technology and the media.
Examples of topics: writing and sending letters (informal and formal) including the use
of electronic mail/fax, radio, television and satellite TV, computers and IT at home,
school and work, advertising.
F. The International World
…topics which deal with experiences of travelling or staying abroad; contact with
speakers of the foreign language; wider international issues.
Examples of topics: school visits and exchanges, national stereotypes, the foreign
language in use in different countries or regions of the world.
G. The world of Imagination and Creativity
…topics which deal with imaginative and creative activities of all kinds, hobbies and
interests; the creative arts in one’s own and other cultures.
Examples of topics: designing and making, fashion and make-up, TV, cinema, theatre
and other entertainments, making a class cassette, magazine or video (DES, 1991: 27-9).

The ‘area of experience’ by specifying topics and themes in England and Wales language
curriculum are distinctive features of culture teaching. The concrete topics and themes in
connection with culture teaching can help teachers to integrate the language learning
with cultural experiences so as to raise pupils’ cultural awareness. The areas covered go
from daily activities to relatively wider topics of international issues.

Similarly, the concept of ‘cultural awareness’ was introduced into the revised 2001
English curriculum in junior secondary in China. I intend to examine how the concept is
interpreted in the Chinese curriculum document compared with curriculum in England

44
and Wales, Canada and USA.

2.4.4 Cultural teaching concepts in the language curriculum in China

As discussed above, the new English curriculum was issued in 2001.There are five parts
concerning English educational goals structured in a circle to indicate the relationship of
each other, more or less like American Five Cs Standards which uses Olympic five rings
(Zhang, 2003) to illustrate how they interconnect and suggest the richness embodied in
human language (see the diagram of English language teaching objectives in China
below).

(Taken from 2001 English Curriculum, China, People’s Education Press)

The five parts are language knowledge, language skills, learning strategies, emotion and

45
attitude, and cultural awareness. It is very interesting to notice that the Five Cs Standards
in America also bears five parts indicating communication, connections, culture,
comparisons and communities. It is clear that the contents of the five parts are different
though the structure of the two curricula is quite similar. The five parts analysis of Five
Cs was given in the section 2.4.1. Now I want to have a close look at the five parts of our
English curriculum in particular.

Comprehensive language competence is the central part. The surrounding five small
instructional fields aim to achieve this central goal. Language skills and language
knowledge are two basic instructional goals and no matter how different the curriculum
gets developed each time, these two always remain as essentials; the emphasis on
language knowledge and language skills. Students can acquire knowledge of a foreign
language through its vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar, topic and etc Using them can
help improve language knowledge. Listening, speaking, reading and writing are the four
basic language skills, in which effective communication occurs. Most communication
takes place by this means. So they are not only necessary language skills but carriers for
English practice as well. They are the solid foundation in basic linguistic language.
However, in the Five Cs, each part is essential and each part or goal area is interlocked
like the Olympic five rings. None of those goals can be separated from the other. They
work together to present the foreign language goals of the country. China’s curriculum is
a circle with five parts evenly contributing to the central part to achieve the
comprehensive language competence. It is debatable whether each part gives the same
contribution to the central target if one is over stressed, for example language knowledge
and language skills as shown above. In my empirical study the result shows only 20%
time distribution is given to culture teaching (see chapter 5, section 5.6). Therefore the
five parts are not equally treated by teachers in practice. I will continue to explore the
other three parts.

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Learning strategies, which contain cognitive strategy, communicative strategy,
monitoring strategy and resource use strategy, also function positively in language
learning and personal development. The traditional strategies of English teaching,
relying on learners’ imitation and memorization while paying less attention to thinking
and creativity, lead learners to develop a high dependence on their teachers and have a
low level of learning autonomy. However, the diagram above taken from 2001 English
Curriculum emphasizes the training of learning strategies in a wider scope, such as
cognitive strategies, monitoring strategies etc. These strategies can prove effective in
yielding twice the result with half the effort and also seen effective in equipping learners
with strategies useful to their lifelong education after graduation (Wang, 2003). From
this it can be seen that more attention is given to help students learn English effectively
and to develop their autonomous learning strategies. As mentioned above,
communicative strategy is a part of learning strategies and the interpretation of this aim
is described in the curriculum document as: 1) to be able to communicate with people in
English in and out of the classroom; 2) to grab every possible opportunity to
communicate in English; 3) to pay attention to the meaning while communicating; 4) to
use gestures and facial expressions if necessary when communicating; 5) to seek help if
encountering communicative problems; 6) to pay attention to custom differences in
communication (2001: 24 - my translation). The message I got from these interpretations
is to use English language for communication but the culture aspect is not stressed even
though non-verbal communication like gestures and facial expressions can be used if
necessary in the communication. However, in the Five Cs standards, language and
culture education is part of the American core curriculum, and ‘it is tied to programme
models that incorporate effective strategies, assessment procedures, and
technologies.’(American Five Cs Standards 1996:11). I notice that though no specific
part is given to illustrate learning strategies in the American Five Cs Standards, the
standpoint emphasizing learning strategies is reflected implicitly. The connections part in
the American standards shows this: ‘The conscious effort to connect the foreign language

47
curriculum with other parts of students’ academic lives opens doors to information and
experiences which enrich the students’ entire school and life experience.’ (American Five
Cs Standards, p.23). Foreign language acquisition focuses on the broader education of
students. It can help students’ learn how to learn.

Emotion and attitude are specified as another goal in China’s English Curriculum while
in the Five Cs they are not. China’s curriculum refers to learners’ interests and motivation
towards the target language, whether they are autonomous or cooperative with others and
what kinds of feelings they hold about their own country and the outside world compose
of affective zone. Language learning will be facilitated if learners are positive, but if they
are negative, this will debilitate their learning. Human beings are emotional creatures,
and their emotions vary from person to person and from time to time. These emotions
play an active part in learners’ English learning which is a complicated process.

The fifth aspect is cultural awareness. The teaching objectives in culture first officially
appeared in the new English Curriculum in written form here and evidenced their
important position in language teaching. The introductory part of cultural awareness
suggests a rationale for English teaching as follows:

The language contains abundant cultural contents. In foreign language teaching,

culture teaching means teaching students history, geography, local customs,
traditional custom, life style, literature art, behavioural norm, values etc. of a
target language. Getting in touch with and understanding cultures of English
speaking countries are beneficial to the comprehension and usages of English;
helpful to obtain a deeper understanding of our cultures, good for the
development of the world view. In such teaching, teachers should consider
characteristics such as the student's age and cognitive abilities expanding the
contents and scope of cultural knowledge gradually. At the beginning stage of

48
 learning English, students should be made encouraged to be interested in culture
in which the language is taught. Cultural knowledge involved in English teaching
should be closely linked to students’ daily life and what they learnt about the
similarities and differences in the culture will stimulate their interest in English.
At the higher stage, the scope and coverage of cultures should be expanded so that
students will broaden their view, and develop sensitivity to the similarities and
difference of our own and others’ culture with the aim of developing intercultural
competence
(China’s English Curriculum Standards (CECS), 2001, p.5, the researcher’s
translation and emphasis added)

The italics to indicate key words and phrases appearing in the introductory part of the
‘cultural awareness objective’ show that the latest national curriculum accentuates the
need to teach cultural knowledge and raise students’ awareness of English speaking
cultures since an awareness of the target-language culture can help students compare
their own and others’ culture so as to develop intercultural competence. The focus shift
from solely language learning to intercultural communication can be traced.

To achieve this goal, there are three attainments concerning the cultural awareness part in
connection with their year and age level. A attainment 2 is for primary school pupils
(year age 9-11). A attainment 5 (year age 12-15) and a attainment 8 (16-18) are set
respectively for the students of junior and senior secondary school. In each some specific
objectives are expected and are presented in Appendix 1. Here I will discuss attainment 5
set for junior secondary students (age 12-15) consistent with my focus throughout the
study.

In the requirements for cultural awareness in attainment 5 at the age of 12-15, the
students are expected to know:

49
__ non-verbal communication (gestures, facial expressions etc); the common names of
different genders and the intimate addresses;
__terms of address among family members;
__ clothing appropriate for formal and informal occasions; .
__ habits of eating and drinking in the target culture;
__ basic knowledge of common plants and animals which bear cultural implications;
__ natural phenomena possibly indicating cultural meanings;
__ traditional entertainments and sports activities;
__ important festivals and holidays and their ways of celebration;

It is notable that the requirements for cultural awareness in attainment 5 bear some
similarities and differences compared with England and Wales National Curriculum (see
section 2.4.3 above). Both are topic-based and cover small c culture. However, the list of
topics in attainment 5 in China seems to be arbitrarily chosen and topics in England and
Wales National Curriculum are arranged by an area of experience, from everyday
activities to the world of imagination and creativity. That is from daily life to the
extension of the world view. The pattern is easily followed. In spite of this arbitrary
choice of cultural topics in China’s National curriculum, it is important to say this is the
first time the attainments have been explicitly set for culture teaching in the curriculum
showing that the culture teaching in the language education is gaining more and more
attention than before. Compared with the 1978, 1982, 1986, and 1996 English language
curricula as I discussed earlier, this 2001 revised English curriculum is stepping closer to
integration into world education and globalization. It is a tremendous progress in English
language curriculum reform.

However, I can see that these attainments for culture teaching are to teach mainly about
culture knowledge, and as the American Five Cs and the standards for culture show, this
is not enough. Students are expected to identify how to use appropriately the practice of

50
addressing, greeting and saying goodbye to each other; how to respond properly to the
praise and requirement of others and to express such ideas appropriately, to know about
what people from a given cultural group are likely to do and understand the cultural
values placed upon certain ways of acting or upon certain beliefs. Cultural competence in
this case comes to be viewed as a body of knowledge about the country on the one hand
and seeks to describe cultures in terms of the practices and values on the other. Such
learning sees culture as unvarying and composed of discrete, concrete facts which can be
taught and learned as factual information, which may be problematic for language
teaching because it omits key elements of cultural knowledge which are important for
intercultural communication, such as underlying value systems, cultural variability
within target language communities, the role of the individual as a creator of culture and
the ways in which language and culture interact in the creation of meaning (Paige, et al,
1999). A result of this orientation is that the cultural component becomes self-contained
and is often very remote from the language itself (Liddicoate, 2004), which obviously
can’t meet the new curriculum guidelines ‘….students will broaden their view, and
develop sensitivity to the similarities and difference of our own and others’ culture with
the aim of developing students’ intercultural competence’ (CECS, 2001, pp. 5 –
emphasis added).

Cultural knowledge is not therefore a case of knowing information about the culture, it is
about knowing how to engage with it and gain insights about ways of living, in particular,
the cultural context (Kramsch, 1993; Liddicoate, 1997). Byram (1997) argues that a
learner needs to become an ‘intercultural speaker’ and Carr (1999) also echoes Byram
that learners should become ‘interculturally competent players as well as sensitive
observers’. Thus I can say that culture teaching is to develop students’ intercultural
competence, clearly asserted in the curriculum, but it is not explicitly specified what the
intercultural competence should be. Before I move to the discussion of the intercultural
approach to foreign language teaching in greater detail, a summary of culture teaching in

51
the language curriculum in different countries is given as following:
----Culture teaching in America is considered as a core of language teaching. Culture
becomes integrated with and integral to language learning.
----Culture teaching in England and Wales is regarded as ‘areas of experience’ a
culture-topic based from daily practice to international contexts with concrete examples
for cultural understanding.
----Culture teaching in Canada is located in the educational agenda of multilingual,
multicultural context for understanding the culture and country they are socialized.
----Culture teaching in China is culture-information-centred for acquisition of culture
knowledge, or in other words, culture is learnt simply by learning the language
associated with the culture.

Thus I may say that the language curricula in these countries provide very broad
concepts which spans high culture, cultural norms and practices. No matter what it may
be, the cultural dimension in foreign/second language curriculum has been given more
emphasis in recent decades. American Five Cs curriculum sees the relationship between
language and culture as very close and culture teaching is put in the core part of language
education. In Canada, the diversified multilingual and multicultural feature of society is
determined by the environment of culture in language and language in culture. In
England and Wales, culture teaching is for the development of understanding of one’s
own and the other cultures, but this is not strong in the Chinese curriculum. In China’s
new English curriculum, the relationship between language and culture doesn’t make as
close an association as in America. There is a disconnection in the document between the
purpose of culture learning (asserted) and no clear consideration and guidance of what
sorts of culture teaching/learning are needed to support improved communication and
better understanding of others (not identified) in the present curriculum. Unlike Canada,
in China there is no reference to diversity in the learners’ own country and focus is above
all on the target language countries. The ideas I got from England and Wales National

52
Curriculum include the systematic arrangement of the cultural topics. The good point I
think, is that teachers can follow clear guidance about what should be taught rather than
individual teachers’ free behaviour .In my empirical study I asked teachers what cultural
topics they prefer to teach. They gave their preference of topics and result of their choice
will be presented in Chapter 5, section 5.4.

The curriculum reform of our country is at the end of the experimental period and the
beginning of the disseminating period. We can improve ourselves by comparing and
learning from others. Some tentative suggestions to improve our national curriculum are
offered in the following:
1) Awareness on English education in China needs enhancing, especially culture
awareness;
2) More concrete, specific guidance, less general description of requirements;
3) Sample lessons should be given as the Five Cs does to help incorporate the standards
into real classroom teaching and learning.
The suggestions listed here are only tentative ones, and there is still much room for
further study in this area in future.

2.5 Intercultural teaching

In the previous sections, a comparative analysis of culture teaching in three countries’

language curricula has been carried out. As this analysis of curricula has shown, there is
growing interest in curriculum issues connected to language education to develop
cultural awareness Many educators and researchers agree that one of the basic and
important goals of intercultural education is to lead students to some understanding of
the notion of culturally determined behaviour as such (Fantini, 1999: 167, 184-185;
Kramsch, 1983: 438; Mantle-Bromley, 1992: 119), so that they begin to see themselves,
not just others, as culturally marked. In Byram’s terms, this amounts to an understanding

53
of relativization of self (1997: 22); thus Byram’s definition of the intercultural speaker
includes recognition of self and other as socially constructed (Roberts, Byram, Barro,
Jordan, & Street, 2001: 30). Relatedly Damen (1987) has argued that awareness of self is
a necessary corollary to awareness of others:
Cross-cultural awareness involves uncovering and understanding one’s own
culturally conditioned behaviour and thinking, as well as the patterns of others. Thus,
the process involves not only perceiving the similarities and differences in other
cultures but also recognizing the givens of the native culture. (p.14).
The goal of understanding self and other as culturally constructed features in the national
curriculum in America, Canada, England and Wales and China as illustrated in the
documents respectively. Among the general objectives of culture learning cited in
Ontario’s curriculum is the broadening of students’ cultural horizons, defined as
openness to cultural difference and altered awareness of one’s own culture (p. 86).
China’s equivalent aims to ‘…develop sensitivity to the similarities and difference of our
own and others’ culture with the aim of developing students’ intercultural competence’
(p.5). Similarly, one of the objectives in England and Wales stipulates that ‘comparison
between learner’s own way of life and that of the other language community is an
essential means to better understanding of both’ (p.37). The Five Cs curriculum of
America says that ‘students demonstrate understanding of the concept of culture through
comparisons of the cultures studied and their own’ (p.56) and students recognize that
culture use different patterns of interaction and apply this knowledge to their own culture
(p.58).

Apart from this, the development of English language curriculum in China reviewed in a
previous section shows that language education changes according to historical,
economic, cultural and social circumstances. The goals of yesterday are not necessarily
the goals of today and tomorrow. The norm of the native speaker in language education
is now being questioned (Widdowson 2004; Kramsch 1998) and replaced by a new ideal:

54
the intercultural speaker (Byram, 1997). This implies that a language speaker, who acts
as a mediator between two cultures, interprets and understands other perspectives and
questions what is taken for granted in their own society. Communicative competence is
combined with intercultural competence to intercultural communicative competence,
ICC (Byram and Zarate, 1997). Byram (1997) has developed a theoretical framework for
teaching and assessing this competence which is a contribution to a revised foreign
language teaching approach. He presents five ‘savoirs’ or factors of knowledge, skills,
attitudes and critical awareness, which form an intercultural competence model and is
widely cited. Apart from Byram’s model, there are some other scholars’ ICC models. For
instance, Chen (2009) summarizes a number of relevant intercultural competence models
in chronological order and defines ICC/IC models into two kinds: models designed for
the purpose of acculturation, which are mostly useful for sojourners, immigrants, or
business purposes; and models that are useful for teachers in education. Byram’s model
belongs to the second kind which I think may be more suitable in my research because
Byram’s model is proposed initially for the purpose of foreign language education,
which allows foreign language teachers to design syllabus and lessons to educate
students to acquire ICC through education. Since my aim is to analyze ICC components
contained in China’s English curriculum, his model is going to be used in my research.

From the earlier review I can see that in the revised 2001 curriculum in China there is a
strong signal that language teaching is for developing students’ intercultural competence
(CECS, 2001, p.5). I wonder whether there is any implication for teaching intercultural
competence, and if any, how much weight in the curriculum is being given to teaching
intercultural competence, how much teachers understand this new concept in theory and
in practice (see discussion in Chapter 3). The curiosity triggers me into examining the
curriculum from an intercultural perspective to see to what extent this has been taken into
account in the existing junior curriculum in China; whether there are any emphases on
skills and attitudes apart from cultural knowledge acquisition. The purpose of doing this

55
is to see whether our latest curriculum can be used to develop students’ intercultural
competence, what is missing; what are the mismatches in teaching intercultural
competence which may serve as a departure to rethink our teacher training programme in
which the missing part might be included in future. Undoubtedly the revision of the
curriculum is beyond my power if needed but I could do what I can do within the limits
of my responsibility and commitment to foreign language education. In the next section I
will analyze the English language curriculum in terms of the components of intercultural
competence.

2.6. The analysis of curriculum in aspects of intercultural competence

In Byram’s (1997) model of intercultural communicative competence (ICC), he defines

five ‘savoirs’, i.e. knowledge, attitudes, two kinds of skills and critical cultural
awareness (see the Table 2-4 below) within cognitive, affective and behavioural
domains.

Table 2.4 Components of ICC developed by Byram (1997)

Skills
Interpret and relate
Savoir-comprendre
Knowledge Education Attitudes
▪of self and other; Political education Relativize self and value
▪of interaction; individual Critical cultural awareness others
and societal Savoir-s’engager Savoir-etre
Savoirs
Skills
Discover and/or interact
Savoir-apprendre/savoirs-faire

He argues that learners need knowledge both of their own and their interlocutor’s country,
and of the general process of societal and individual interactions. Moreover, he believes

56
that an attitude of ‘curiosity and openness, readiness to suspend disbelief about other
cultures and belief about one’s own’ is also essential in communication. In addition, he
proposes that learners need skills of interpreting and relating, and skills of discovery and
interaction to handle various cognitive and affective tasks to acquire intercultural
competence. Ultimately, learners should be able to develop a critical mind towards
perspectives, practice and products in their own and other cultures. Taken together, the
list of abilities forms the elements of becoming an intercultural speaker, the goal of
foreign language education.

After studying Byram’s model and our English curriculum closely, I find it is difficult to
distinguish knowledge, attitudes and skills, because the relationship between them is
inter-related and overlapping. Skills of interpreting and relating, for example, draw upon
knowledge without which these skills can’t be acquired. A clear division between which
is knowledge and which is skill is difficult to make. However this is both the strength and
the weakness of the model. They make this clearer but simplify the complexity and so it
is necessary to look for the evidence of the five elements whenever they appear not
necessarily as separate elements. Therefore I want to look for the statement of evidence
contained in our current curriculum.

To make this process operable, the first step is to make a table in which the attainments in
the Chinese curriculum and five components (attitude, knowledge, two kinds of skills
and awareness) of intercultural communicative competences are indicated (see the table
below). The reason for this is that it will hopefully enable me to identify each factor more
easily and provides clearer reference for later analysis.

Table 2.5 The Example Table of Classification of ICC of English curriculum in China

Attainments Knowledge attitudes Two sets of Skills Critical Awareness

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 Attainment 2
Attainment 5
Attainment 8

As mentioned earlier there are three attainments in the cultural awareness component as
one of the language teaching objectives in the 2001 revised curriculum. Attainment 2 is
set for Years 3-6 (ages 9-11) and attainments 5 and 8 are for Years 7-9 and Years 10-12
(ages 12-15 and 16-18) respectively. Though my study is mainly focused on Years 7-9
throughout, I intend to take three levels of attainments into the classification of ICC as a
whole in order to see whether there is any shifting emphasis on these factors of ICC.

The classification process of ICC components is to first locate Byram’s book (1997) and
the English curriculum of China side by side to refer to, looking at the first component of
knowledge under which the objectives are identified by Byram as follows:
Knowledge: ‘of social groups and their products and practices in one's own and in one's
interlocutor's country, and of the general processes of societal and individual
interaction’ (p.58).
Objectives (knowledge of/about):
(1) historical and contemporary relationships between one's own and one's interlocutor'
countries;
(2) the means of achieving contact with interlocutors from another country (at a
distance or in proximity), of travel to and from, and the institutions which facilitate
contact or help resolve problems;
(3) the types of cause and process of misunderstanding between interlocutors of different
cultural origins;
(4) the national memory of one's own country and how its events are related to and seen
from the perspective of other countries;
(5) the national memory of one's interlocutor's country and the perspective on them from

58
one's own country;
(6) the national definitions of geographical space in one's own country, and how these are
perceived from the perspective of other countries;
(7) the national definitions of geographical space in one's interlocutor's country and the
perspective on them from one's own;
(8) the process and institutions of socialization in one's own and one's interlocutor's
country;
(9) social distinctions and their principal markers, in one's own country and one's
interlocutor's;
(10) institutions, and perceptions of them, which impinge on daily life within one's own
and one's interlocutor's country and which conduct and influence relationships between
them;
(11) the processes of social interaction in one's interlocutor’s country;
According to Byram’s model, knowledge is classified into two kinds : 1) knowledge of
others and of social processes of intergroup communication social groups(savoirs) and 2)
Knowledge of self and of critical cultural awareness, which involves an ability to
evaluate practices and products of one’s own and others’ cultures (savoir s’engager).

In order to be identified clearly and easily, I decided to use the short form ( K1,K2,K3…
K11 ) to identify the knowledge factor with a corresponding specific objective. The letter
‘K’ stands for ‘knowledge’ and the number ‘1’ for the first objective of knowledge. I will
proceed in this manner for other components such as attitudes, skills and awareness.
I first look at the attainment 2 for Years 3-6 pupils (age 9-11). When they finish their
primary school education at the age of 11, students are required to
1) know the expressions of simple forms of addresses, greeting and farewell in
English ;
2) be able to respond appropriately to general praises and requests;
3) know about important recreational activities and sports activities in the world;

59
 4) know the names of the most common food and drinks in English speaking
countries;
5) know the capitals and flags of major English speaking countries;
6) know the important symbols of major countries, like Big Ben in London; and
7) know the major festivals and holidays in English speaking countries.
(English Curriculum, People’s Education Press, 2001)

The way I am going to proceed is to see what the curriculum requires at attainment 2 and
match this with the objectives under the factor of knowledge (Savoirs). For example, I
group the item 4,5,6, with Byram’s model of knowledge as K9 which says that the
intercultural speaker knows about social distinctions and their principal markers in one’s
own country and one’s interlocutor’s country while at attainment 2 pupils should know
the names of food and drinks, flags and capitals, symbols and markers like Big Ben in
London. It seems that the three items 4,5,6 can generally match the 9th objective of
knowledge. Items 1 and 2 can be linked to K3 because misunderstanding may be caused
by different ways of greeting and addressing as modes of socialization and as cultural
customs and rites. Differences in address forms are real across cultures. For example, the
family name and given name are different in order. In Chinese, the family name is in the
first place and the given name follows just the opposite of English speaking countries.
Items 3 and 7 are possibly put into K4 which deals with events are related to and seen
from the perspective of others.

I notice that only the first kind of knowledge of others and of social processes of
intergroup communication are mentioned and the second kind of knowledge of self and
of critical cultural awareness, which involve an ability to evaluate practices and products
of one’s own and others’ cultures are missing. Without comparison of differences in
one’s own culture with others’ through the language being learnt, learners can’t develop
greater insight into their own language and cultures and realize the multiple ways of

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viewing the world .

Pursuing this same method I move to the second factor of attitudes under which there are
5 objectives illustrated as follows:
Attitudes: ‘curiosity and openness, readiness to suspend disbelief about other cultures
and belief about one's own’ (p.57).
Objectives:
(a) willingness to seek out or take up opportunities to engage with otherness in a
relationship of equality, distinct from seeking out the exotic or the profitable;
(b) interest in discovering other perspectives on interpretation of familiar and unfamiliar
phenomena both in one's own and in other cultures and cultural practices;
(c) willingness to question the values and presuppositions in cultural practices and
products in one's own environment;
(d) readiness to experience the different stages of adaptation to and interaction with
another culture during a period of residence;
(e) readiness to engage with the conventions and rites of verbal and non-verbal
communication and interaction;
At attainment 2, none of the given items can be grouped into the objectives of attitudes.
The focus obviously is placed on introducing knowledge of other cultures to the pupils’
rather than developing their attitudes of willingness and readiness towards foreign
culture. The factor of attitudes, one of the most important components of ICC, does not
feature in the 2001 revised curriculum

Next the other two factors: skills and critical awareness will be looked at. Byram’s model
divides skills into two kinds, ‘Skills of interpreting and relating and skills of discovery
and interaction ‘. In order to differentiate one from the other, I mark the first as ‘S1’ and
the second as ‘S2’ using lower case letters for the objectives of skills and critical
awareness in the categorization. The same method is employed: first presenting the

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specific objectives in Byram’s model and then grouping the items in attainment 2 into the
objectives.
Byram’s definition of skills of interpreting and relating is: Ability to interpret a
document or event from another culture, to explain it and relate it to documents from
one’s own .
Objectives (ability to)
- identify ethnocentric perspectives in a document or event and explain their origins;
- identify areas of misunderstanding and dysfunction in an interaction and explain them
in terms of each of the cultural system present;
- mediate between conflicting interpretations of phenomena;
Skills of discovery and interaction: Ability to acquire new knowledge of a culture and
culture practices and ability to operate knowledge, attitudes and skills under the
constraints of real-time communication and interaction.
Objectives (ability to )
- elicit from interlocutors the concepts and values of documents or events and develop an
explanatory system susceptible of application to other phenomena;
- identify significant references within and across cultures and elicit their significance
and connotations;
- identify the similar and dissimilar processes of interaction, verbal and non-verbal, and
negotiate an appropriate use of them in specific circumstances;
- use in real-time an appropriate combination of knowledge ,skills and attitudes to
interact with interlocutors from a different country and culture, taking into consideration
the degree of one’s existing familiarity with the country and culture and the extent of
differences between one’s own and other cultures;
- identify contemporary and past relations between one’s own and the other culture and
country;
- identify and make use of public and private institutions which facilitate contact with
other countries and cultures;

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- use real-time knowledge, skills and attitudes for mediation between interlocutors of
one’ own and a foreign culture
Critical cultural awareness/political education: An ability to evaluate critically and on
the basis of explicit criteria perspectives, practices and products in one’s own and other
cultures and countries.
Objectives (ability to)
- identify and interpret explicit or implicit values in documents and events in one’s own
and other cultures;
- make an evaluative analysis of the documents and events which refers to an explicit
perspective and criteria;
- interact and mediate in intercultural exchanges in accordance with explicit criteria,
negotiating where necessary a degree of acceptance of them by drawing upon one’s
knowledge, skills and attitudes.

After presenting particular objectives in terms of skills and critical cultural awareness
from Byram, I continue with the process of classification used above to see to what
extent the items in Attainment 2 can match these objectives in terms of skills and critical
awareness. The result will be shown using the following schema:

Table 2.6 The Classification of ICC in Primary School(age 10-12)

Attainments Knowledge Attitudes Skills Awareness

Attainment 2 K3, K4, K9 S2c
Attainment 5
Attainment 8

From the classification of Attainment 2 in terms of components of ICC, knowledge,

attitudes, skills and critical awareness presented above, I can safely draw the conclusion
that there are no objectives on attitudes and cultural awareness in attainment 2. As

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explained earlier, attainment 2 is set for pupils of primary school (ages 10-12). The
pupils are just beginning to learn a foreign language, which is quite different from the
mother tongue they have started to learn at age 7 in Year 1. They would be curious about
and interested in differences brought to them through classroom English teaching. They
usually appear eager and willing to learn a new language with its very different culture
(Wang, 2002). But regrettably the attitudes of curiosity and openness to use the new
opportunity to develop pupils’ positive attitude towards engaging with otherness, an
ability to question values, interest in discovering other perspectives on familiar and
unfamiliar phenomena in one’s own and in other culture’s practice; readiness to engage
with communication verbally or non-verbally are not given any attention at attainment 2.
The sole presentation of knowledge of another culture is not enough to constitute
intercultural competence. It does also involve the development of one’s attitudes, skills
and awareness in successfully interacting with people of diverse cultures.

This result invites me to examine attainment 5 which is my major concern in the present
study. In order to get a more objective picture of the classification of components of ICC
in English curriculum, I have decided to employ the same process to classify attainments
5 and 8 .

After pupils finish primary school around the ages of 11or 12, they start junior secondary
school education. Compared with the items in terms of cultural awareness in attainment
2, there are 14 items at attainment 5 for junior school students. The requirements for
cultural awareness involve higher expectations. In attainment 5 (year-age 13-15),
students are expected to:
1) know commonly-used body language such as gestures and facial expressions etc. in
English communication;
2) be able to appropriately use forms of address and expressions of greetings and
farewell ;

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3) know and differentiate the common names of genders and very intimate forms of
address;
4) know the custom of the forms of address among the family members in English
speaking countries;
5) know about clothing appropriate for formal and informal occasions;
6) know about the food customs in English speaking countries;
7) be able to respond appropriately to praise and requests of others;
8) be able to express praise and requests to others in a proper way;
9) know about the geographic position, weather characteristics and history of English
speaking countries;
10) know about familiar animals and plants of their cultural connotations in English
speaking countries;
11) know about natural phenomena and their possibly implied cultural meanings in
English;
12) know about the traditional entertainments and sports activities in English speaking
countries;
13) know about important festivals and holidays and their ways of celebration in English
speaking countries;
14) get a deeper understanding of Chinese culture.
(English Curriculum, People’s Education Press, 2001)
I classify items 1,4,11,12 into K11 which says the intercultural speaker knows about
levels of formality in the language and non-verbal behaviour of interaction, about
conventions of behaviour and beliefs and taboos in routine situations such as meals,
different forms of public and private meeting, public behaviour etc, and items 3,5,6 into
K9 which says that the intercultural speaker knows about social distinctions in two
countries and how these are marked by visible and invisible phenomena in the
communication verbally or non-verbally. Items 9, 10,13 are grouped into K7, K5, K5
which are about national memory of others like events, cultural products, sites of

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significance and geography etc. The knowledge presented in attainment 5 also belongs to
the second category of knowledge classified by Byram and the first knowledge of self
and social critical awareness is not mentioned. The proportion of component of skills
seems to add more than the one in attainment 2. Three items 2,7,8 are related to skills and
I grouped those as S1b, S2d, S2d respectively. The last item 14 mentions that students
should get a deeper understanding of Chinese culture, which I allocate under Awa.

Table 2.7 The Classification of ICC in junior middle school (age 13-15)
Attainments Knowledge Attitudes Skills Awareness
Attainment 2 K3, K3, K4, S2c
K9, K9, K9, K4
Attainment 5 K11, K9, K11, S1b, S2d, S2d Awa
K9, K9, K7,
K5, K11, K11,
K5,
Attainment 8

It is clear that the ‘attitude’ factor, aiming to develop students’ ICC is not given any
emphasis in attainment 5. Though it is still knowledge centred, students are expected to
identify how to use appropriate means for addressing, greeting and saying goodbye to
each other; to be able to respond properly to praise and requests of others and can express
these ideas appropriately. The ability to interpret and explain an event in terms of each of
the cultural systems are more or less mentioned .Byram argues that the simple
presentation of cultural knowledge without comparing with one’s own culture will lead
students to only listening to and learning of ‘typical’ differences, of haphazard facts
about foreign cultures (Byram, 1989:87), which can’t help them raise consciousness of

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their intuitive knowledge of the patterns of their mother culture. After classification of
the cultural elements in attainment 2 and 5, I find that language learners are provided
with more unselected information about the foreign countries, people and cultures as
they learn English. This unsystematic approach to providing information leaves learners
with unstructured information rather than knowledge (Byram, 1989: 91) and is likely to
be without effect on learners’ understanding of others, as it is shown in Byram,
Esarte-Sarries and Taylor ( 1991: 34).

With students entering senior secondary school at ages 16-18 , attainment 8 requires
them to:
1) comprehend common English idioms, popular sayings and their cultural connotation;
2) comprehend legends and classical reference used in English conversations;
3) know about the major literary figures, artists, scientists and their historical
achievements in English speaking countries;
4) gain an initial knowledge of political and economic aspects of English speaking
countries;
5) know about the mass media in English speaking countries
6) understand life-style differences and similarities between China and English speaking
countries;
7) understand differences and similarities in behaviour bearing and social etiquette of
dealing with people between the English speaking countries and China;
8) know about religious traditions in the English speaking countries;
9) develop consciousness of the world through learning and understanding world culture;
10) get a better understanding of Chinese culture by comparing and contrasting foreign
cultures ;
(English Curriculum, People’s Education Press, 2001)

Before attainment 8 is grouped, I will have to distinguish between ‘know’ and

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‘understand’ used in the description of the objectives in this attainment. According to the
Oxford English Dictionary, to know means: be aware of through observation, inquiry or
information, to have knowledge or information concerning; to understand means:
perceive the intended meaning of words, a language, a speaker, perceive the significance,
explanation or causes of, interpret or view in particular way. Students at this stage are
required not only to know some cultural knowledge but also to be equipped with an
ability to explain and interpret the meaning on the basis of understanding the
target-speaking cultures.

I group items 1, 2, into S2b, saying ‘identify significant references within and across
cultures and elicit their significance and connotations’; students are asked to comprehend
frequently used English idioms, popular sayings, their cultural connotations and implied
meanings used in the language they are learning. The items 6,7 which aim at
understanding the similarities and difference in life style and in behaviour bearing and
social etiquette of dealing with people between China and English speaking countries
which can match S2c , ‘identifying similar and dissimilar processes of interaction,
verbal and non-verbal, and negotiate an appropriate use of them in specific
circumstances’. If the techniques of comparison and contrast of different cultures are
used properly, students’ cultural awareness will be developed, which are considered the
most useful and effective way to develop ICC. I put item 3,4,5,8 into K1, K8, K2, K9 and
items 9, 10 into Awb respectively. The result is presented in the following table:

Table 2.8 The Classification of ICC in senior middle school (age 16-18)

Attainments Knowledge attitudes Skills Awareness

Attainment 2 K3, K3, K4, S2c
K9, K9, K9, K4
Attainment 5 K11, K9, K11, S1b, S2d, S2d Awa
K9, K9, K7,
K5, K11, K11,
K5,

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Attainment 8 K1, K8, K2, S2a, S1a, S1a, Awb
K9 S1a, S2b, S1a

Though the objectives at attainment 8 are still knowledge-based, the emphasis of

cultivating students’ abilities of acquiring new knowledge of a culture and cultural
practice and of explaining their cultural meaning is given some attention.

From the categorization of ICC in the English curriculum, we can see that the objectives
of cultural awareness stated in the national curriculum of English in China are mainly
focused on the acquisition of cultural knowledge of English speaking countries (ESC) in
respect to attainments 2, 5 and 8. Students, in attainment 2 (age10-12), are expected to
know the basic expressions and forms of greetings, addressing, saying goodbye to others;
to know the names of common foods and drinks in ESC; to know the cultural symbols of
flags, capitals and landmarks of significance, important festivals etc. Obviously the
emphasis is put on the acquisition of preliminary knowledge of the culture of others and
of social processes of social groups. What Byram (1997) calls an ability to evaluate
practice and products of one’s own and others’ culture is not mentioned in the curriculum
in attainment 2. Skills of this kind are not given much attention.

When students move to the junior and senior middle schools, it can be seen from the
categorization (see Table 7) for attainment 5 and (Table 8) for attainment 8, the
instruction of cultural knowledge shifts from its dominant place gradually to skills
development. The students are not confined to the passive reception of knowledge but
they are encouraged to comprehend the English idioms, popular sayings, allusions and
their cultural implications; to compare the similarities and differences in life styles,
behaviours, interactions in our own countries and other countries. Through comparison
of different cultures, students will receive a better understanding of our own culture and
develop an international perceptive. But the ability to acquire new knowledge of a
culture and cultural practice and the ability to operate knowledge, attitudes and skills to

69
communicate and/or interact with people from other cultures are not given importance in
the curriculum.

As far as attitudes are concerned, there is no explicit statement in attainment 2, 5, 8 about

attitudes such as curiosity and openness, readiness to suspend disbelief about other
cultures and belief about one’s own (Byram, 1997), but there are some statements
mentioning ‘attitude and emotion’ as explained above in the new English curriculum as
one of the five components recommended for English language education. Empathy and
attitude include motivation and interest; confidence and willpower; cooperative spirit;
national identity and international vision in general, these being more linguistic-attitudes
directed rather than intercultural attitude-oriented. Attitudes are viewed as fundamental
to the development of intercultural competence by Byram et.al (1997). When people
from different cultures communicate in respect of the cultural meanings, beliefs and
behaviours they exhibit, they are likely to adopt attitudes characterized as prejudice or
stereotypes (Allport, 1979). Such attitudes are often but not always negative, but even
positive prejudice and stereotype can create unsuccessful communication. With this kind
of concept, learners need to cultivate attitudes of willingness and openness to understand,
accept and tolerate others’ meanings, beliefs and behaviours, which are different from
their own social community or that of others.

In short, the analysis against Byram’s model has shown some gaps in the Chinese
curriculum like attitudes of curiosity, openness, readiness to suspend disbelief about
other cultures and belief about one’s own are missing, but there are also some changes in
emphasis as learners grow older. This is an issue which will re-appear in the empirical
study of teachers’ views of the curriculum and what they would like to teach in the
language education in terms of ICC (see Chapter 5).

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2.7 Summary of the chapter

In this chapter, I have reviewed the development of the English curriculum over nearly
three decades since 1979 in China, which has provided me with a general view of
gradual gained place of culture in the language curriculum. Then my attention was
shifted to some major English-speaking countries like Canada, Britain and USA to
examine culture teaching in their respective language curriculum so as to place our
understanding of culture teaching in a global context. After analyzing culture teaching in
these countries, I came to realize that all curriculum documents in the four countries
share some common ground in respect to culture teaching. It is agreed that language
teaching/learning is to develop students’ communicative competence for intercultural
interaction and intercultural communicative competence is necessarily developed
towards this language education goal. There were also differences and these showed in
the following aspects:

1. Big C vs Little C
It is not difficult to find that the culture goals of America , Canada and England & Wales
are inclined to ‘little C’ culture instruction, the topics are more extensive concerning
those aspects of daily living, housing, clothing, food and all the patterns of behaviour
that members of the culture regard as necessary and appropriate. China’s curriculum
tends to cover both ‘little C’ and ‘big C’ culture which is concerned with some
knowledge of the formal institutions, the great figures of history, and those products of
literature, fine arts and like, which have been discussed in previous sections.

2. Different objectives
The objectives set for language learning and teaching are different in a sense, for instance,
American students are expected to meet the national ‘Five Cs’ goals in which culture and
communication are key words to represent the final goal of foreign language education
for the country. Canadian students are required to adapt themselves in multicultural and

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multilingual context and the cultural awareness is placed in the understanding of Canada
diversity as a new citizen. Students in England and Wales are expected to develop
understanding of themselves and their own culture as one of the important purposes of
learning foreign languages .Chinese students are expected to have comprehensive
language competence, paying special attention the language competence.

3. Approaches and learning experience varied

The approaches and learning experience of three countries are much more varied than
those in China. For example, the task-based approach in China is strongly suggested in
the curriculum while approaches in other countries are more flexible and a wide variety
of various situation is considered when approaches are employed. Students in China have
less colourful learning experience in the language class than those in other countries. For
example in (DES, 1991: 27-9) I found topics like ‘designing and making, fashion and
make-up, TV, cinema, theatre and other entertainments, making a class cassette,
magazine or video’ which appear more imaginative and creative if they are used in
classroom teaching.. The classroom activities seem more interesting and various than
classroom activities in China’s English classroom learning because of conditions, time,
and other resources problems.

For intercultural communicative competence, Byram’s model is introduced and

discussed, on which our curriculum has been analyzed. The components of ICC,
according to Byram, are knowledge, attitudes, skills and critical cultural awareness. Our
curriculum analysis findings show that culture teaching in China is still above all
transmission of culture information about English-speaking countries and the skills of
relating, interpreting, discovering and interacting are not given much weight in the
development of students’ ICC. Attitudes and critical cultural awareness have not been
paid attention although they are vital in the whole process of language education. The
gap in this aspect of foreign language teaching is very marked by the Table 8 shown

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above and may suggest a need to reconsider the value of teaching language in
intercultural dimension. An intercultural approach to foreign language teaching is not
much researched or officially debated in China. By doing this research I hope to draw
attention to a neglected area, and contribute to extend knowledge and discussion in the
English curriculum and teacher education.

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 Chapter Three

An Analysis of Literature on Language-Culture Teaching

3.1 Introduction

This chapter aims at providing the theoretical foundations for teaching culture
components in the foreign language classroom in order to consider in more depth
research question 2: Is it necessary to teach culture in language education?

In this chapter I will present an account of the relationship between language and culture
in general. I shall then consider culture teaching in ELT, what the role of the culture in
language education is; what culture contents should be taught in the language classroom;
what methods should be used to teach culture, and I will also see what teachers can do, in
particular, the role of teachers in the changing ideas of teaching and learning.

Finally I will look at the research on teachers’ thinking and beliefs in language and
culture teaching as part of the preparation for my empirical analysis of teachers’ beliefs
in China.

3.2 The debate about the relationship between language and culture

and its implications for language teaching

The discussion of the relationship between language and culture has never stopped and
opinions have been diverse from a variety of disciplinary perspectives for many years.
Linguists, sociologists, anthropologists, culturists, and foreign language teachers, out of
their own research area and interest, have sought to understand whether and how cultural

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factors influence aspects of human behaviour such as perception, cognition, language
and communication. Relatively easy is the commonly accepted differentiation of ‘big C
culture’ and ‘small c culture’. ‘Culture’ refers to historical events, geographical icons,
major institutions and major works of arts and music, whereas ‘culture’ refers to the
products of everyday life and to the conditions of their production.

Williams defines culture as ‘a whole way of life’ (1966) reflecting a shift of emphasis
which has taken place from a consideration of products to the ways and circumstances in
which they are created. This is similar to the way interculturalists such as Cushner and
Brislin (1996) and Bennett (1998) associate the big C and small c distinction with
objective culture and subjective culture respectively, following sociologists such as
Berger & Luckmann (1966) and psychologists such as Triandis (1994). Objective culture
not only refers to culture creations----the institutions and artefacts that were defined
above as big C culture----but it also includes patterns of everyday behaviour such as
eating, shopping, artefacts, and clothing that were characterized as ‘small c culture’.
Subjective (small c) culture refers to the invisible, less tangible aspects of culture
(Cushner & Brislin, 1996). It focuses on the world view maintained by members of a
society. This world view is the set of distinctions and constructs that can variously be
described as cultural values, beliefs, assumptions about life, and goal-directed activities
that become unconsciously or subconsciously accepted as ‘right’ and ‘correct’ by people
who identify themselves as members of a society.(Brislin 1990: 27). There is a
significant overlap of this notion of subjective culture and the idea of deep culture, as
described by Brooks (1997) based on his reading of Edward T. Hall’s influential The
Silent Language (1959). However in the continuing development of Hall’s work, the
culturists define the elements of subjective culture as language use, nonverbal behaviour,
communication style, and cognitive style and culture values.

Many linguists agree upon the concept that language is an innate faculty in the human

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race and it is not an artefact (Pinker, 1994). This statement is correct in terms of humans’
natural language skills. But so far as the field of pragmatics is concerned, one can’t
safely say that language can be isolated from its socioculture, as cultural factors are
always reflected in our daily and professional communication. To obtain a clear picture
of the close relationship between language and culture, perhaps what one needs to pursue
in more depth the real meaning of culture.

According to Brislin (cited in Linda, 2001), culture is an attribute of individuals, of small

groups, of organizations, of nations; a single person can belong to a multiplicity of
cultures, any one of which may be important at any given time. What is implied in this
definition is that culture may comprise macro-culture, such as the national or large
communal one, and micro-culture, as can be observed even in the individual culture. It
also denotes that culture is changing all the time. However, the most important
implication that can be drawn from Brislin’s definition is that culture is not monolithic,
for it can consist of different layers of content and should be analyzed from various
perspectives, such as age, gender, religion, ethnicity, etc.

Nevertheless, how does a person know or understand a culture, and in what ways does a
person maintain his/her cultural identity? Despite the multiple means, such as arts and
films, language is probably the most common method by which a person can achieve
these goals. This is because human thought or ideology is an important component of
culture and because language is a most important medium to convey thought. Therefore,
language can’t be isolated from culture. Based on this relation between language and
culture, it is easy to understand why a person who knows thousands of words of another
language may still find it difficult to communicate with people of that language. The
English phrase ‘read between the lines’ is an explicit demonstration of how context
impacts on semantics. How culture lies behind language can be further explained by the
Sapir-Whorf theory. The Sapir-Whorf theory is a very influential but controversial

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theory concerning the relationship between language, thought and culture. What this
hypothesis suggests is this: our language helps mould our way of thinking and,
consequently, different languages probably express our unique ways of understanding
the world. Following this argument, two important points could be captured in this theory.
On the one hand, language may determine our thinking patterns; on the other, similarity
between languages is relative, the greater their structural differentiation is, the more
diverse their conceptualization of the world will be. Consequently, two versions of the
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis have been developed, a strong version and a weak version. The
strong version of the theory refers to the claim the original hypothesis suggests,
emphasizing the decisive role of language as the shaper of our thinking patterns. The
weak version of this hypothesis, however, is a modified type of its original theory,
suggesting that there is a correlation between language, culture and thought, but the
cross-cultural differences thus produced in our ways of thinking are relative, rather than
categorical.

In fact, many scholars have analyzed and commented on the relationship between
language and culture. Brown (1999: 23) describes their relationship as following: ‘A
language is part of culture and a culture is a part of language: the two are intricately
interwoven so that one can’t separate them without losing the significance of either
language or culture.’ A large number of other social scientists hold almost the same
views as Brown that language and culture are inseparable and that language
simultaneously reflects culture, and is influenced and shaped by it. Such assertions are
extremely frequent within the subject area of language and culture pedagogy represented
by people such as Roberts et al. (2001), and Mckay (2000) points out that by teaching a
language, one is inevitably already teaching culture implicitly. This is also one of the
reasons why we call the conversation between people from different cultures
cross-cultural communication (Hu, 1999).
To further demonstrate the close relationship between culture and language, Jiang (1999),

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a Chinese scholar, made a survey of native English speakers and native Chinese speakers
on what items they usually associate with the word ‘food’. The results exactly indicate
the inseparability between language and culture. When the Chinese group came to face
the word ‘food’, they often thought of steamed bun or rice while the English group
tended to come up with steak and bread, or even their related cooking processes. Truly,
language is deeply rooted in the culture where it operates. In addition to ‘food’,
numerous other examples are frequently employed by English teachers in China to
illustrate the difference between these two languages and their relevant cultures. For
example, ‘dog’ is not a word that often conveys a derogatory connotation in western
societies whereas ‘a lucky dog’ in China is rarely used. And ‘to look like a wet rat’ can be
converted to ‘look like a wet chicken ’in Chinese cultural settings.

3.2.1 The Implications for language teaching

The above discussions can explicitly attest to the inseparability between language and
culture. Therefore, when learning a second or foreign language, one will inevitably
encounter a new culture. The target culture may bear some similarities to the source one,
but for the most part, they may vary from each other. If language teachers are not
conscious about these cultural differences and teach them, the final outcome of foreign
language acquisition and communicative ability may be affected. The misunderstanding
of intercultural communication may occur if there comes an opportunity of
communication between two people from different cultures.

Language is not simply a reflector of an objective cultural reality. It is an integral part of

that reality through which other parts are shaped and interpreted. It is both a symbol of
the whole and a part of the whole which shaped and in turn is shaped by sociocultural
actions, beliefs and values. In engaging in language, speakers are enacting sociocultural
phenomena; in acquiring language, they acquire the ability to enact cultural phenomena.
Given this theoretical viewpoint, it follows that to teach culture without language is

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fundamentally flawed and to separate language and culture teaching is to imply that a
foreign language can be treated in the early stage as if it were self-contained and
independent of other sociocultural phenomena (Buttjes and Byram, 1991 :18). The
differentiation made in this statement is so fundamental that it indicates that language
doesn’t exist in a social vacuum, but is firmly fixed in the way of life, beliefs, practices
and value system of its speakers.

In other words, language is a reflection of culture and culture is reflection of language.

With differences in cultures and differences in languages, difficulties often arise in
intercultural communication. Consequently, it is now commonly accepted that language
teaching should emphasize not only the language form, but also its culture. Thus there is
great need to explore further what is the significance of culture teaching in FLT in the
next section.

3.2.2 Development of Culture teaching in foreign language education

As argued above, I can see that it is impossible to deal with second language education
without taking culture into account. When the goal of second language learning became
communication, culture was inevitably involved. The role of culture in second language
education has traditionally been placed in a fairly unconsidered, constrained and
taken-for-granted fashion; the importance of culture has often been recognized but
seldom analyzed.

However, in recent times, applied linguists and language teachers have become
increasingly aware that a second or foreign language can rarely be learnt or taught
without addressing the culture of the community in which it is used. Thomas observed
(1983, 1984) that non-native speakers are often perceived to display inappropriate
language behaviours and often are not aware that they do. She cautions that violations of
cultural norms of appropriateness in interactions between native and non-native speakers

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often lead to sociopragmatic failure, breakdown in communication, and the stereotyping
of non-native speakers. As a consequence, Thomas (1983: 91) points out that teachers
must draw on research to ‘develop ways of heightening and refining students’
metapragmatic awareness, so that they are able to express themselves as they choose.’

The importance of teaching culture in foreign language education has thus been given
new attention. In the early decades of language teaching in Europe, according to Stern
(1983), there was ‘no reference to anything that might be described as ‘cultural’ aspect of
language teaching’ (1983:263) for example when Sweet’s book The Practical Study of
Languages: A Guide for Teachers and learners was published in 1889. On the other hand,
the teaching of European civilization was officially acknowledged and recommended for
school curricula by the Modern Language Association of America (1900). In many
countries, after World War 1, great effort was made in promoting international
understanding and foreign language teaching. To support this point, Hall (1947:4) quoted
the long standing view of J.S Mill who declared that an important purpose of language
learning was to learn about a country and its people. The content about foreign countries
and peoples must be added to language teaching. It was believed that some knowledge of
the history of the people who speak a language is necessary in language programmes
(Atkins and Hutton, 1920).

Some other cases can be traced. For example, in Germany, a theory of the teaching of
culture, Kulturkunde as a part of language programmes was developed vigorously
(Rulcker, 1969 pp47-70). In France, the study of civilization was a supplement to
language programmes towards an analysis of the whole way of life of a country (Byram
and Risager, 1999) and the anthropologically-inspired approach was developed. In
Britain and the United States, the teaching of culture concentrated on history, geography,
institutions and distinctive contributions of the foreign country to human civilization.
The study of great literature, which was seen as a part of civilization, was one of the

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objectives of culture learning in foreign language education.

After the Second World War, achievements in anthropology and sociology began to
profoundly influence foreign language education. Many authors made great efforts in
this field of research like Robinson (1985), Damen (1987) Kramsch (1993) and others in
the United States and Byram (1989a; Byram et al., 1994; Roberts, 1997) in the United
Kingdom. They discovered that other disciplines, like social psychology and
anthropology are relevant to language education. The emphasis on combining the
teaching of language and culture was stressed with the conviction that understanding
foreign culture and comparisons between cultures are a necessary component of
language education. This notion was most expressed by many educators from very early
periods of 1950s up to now like: Lado (1957, 1964), Hall (1959, 1966, 1974, 1977),
Bishop (1960), Brooks (1960, 1964, 1968, 1971, 1975), Hymes (1964), Rivers (1964,
1968, 1981, 1983), Nostrand (1966, 1973, 1974), Seelye (1968, 1970, 1973, 1974, 1984,
1988).

After this preliminary overview of the development of culture teaching in FLT which has
shown culture teaching has been given increasing attention in FLT so that language
teaching is culture teaching, in next section, I want to examine the growth of culture
teaching in China.

3.3 Research situation of culture studies in China

Introduction

In the previous section, a general review on language and culture; cultural teaching in
foreign language education has been provided in the context of the western countries by
Western scholars. Byram (1997) and Byram and Fleming (1998) argue that foreign
language teaching depends primarily upon a particular educational context. Therefore I
want to review the literature on cultural teaching and research in language education

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done by Chinese scholars and look at their viewpoints on culture and language
relationship.

The literature of culture teaching in language education, as will be shown below, has
mostly been published in the recent two decades. The study of culture in language
education is an entirely new concern of the 1980s. Before that time, cultural studies had
been like a forbidden zone for some decades particularly in foreign language education
(Feng, 2000). Reviewing the literature for no more than two decades, which appears too
short for a research area, seems to make sense of an overview of cultural studies teaching
in language education chronologically rather than theoretical development.

3.3.1 Chronological development of culture teaching in China

In the early 1980s, Prof. Xu Guozhang gave a speech titled the Cultural Connotation of
Words and English Teaching. It indicated that the foreign language teaching field started
to show its attention on the relationships between culture and foreign language. Cultural
studies and research into foreign language teaching was activated from then. There was a
nation-wide discussion about Chinese traditional culture, a comparison between Chinese
culture and Western culture and a debate about what China should learn from the West
(Deng and Liu 1989). At the same time, articles and books about teaching foreign
cultures were published concerning the introduction of some western ideas about
teaching foreign cultures in China’s foreign language education. Gu Jiazu and Lu Sheng
edited a book Language and Culture (1988) in which wider topics are covered. For
example, Language, Signs and Culture: A Semiotic Approach to Culture as
Communication by Lu Sheng; Speech Style in a Cultural Perspective by Zhao Xueru; A
Cultural Approach to Rhetoric by Lin Jicheng; Language and Culture in Theoretical
Perspective by Lin Jicheng as well. In the latter’s opinion, language is no more than a
subsystem of the culture system, and as such it is unvaryingly subject to and constructive
of culture, which in turn finds its survival in language. He goes on to state that language

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mirrors culture. Semiotically, as culture is chiefly encoded in and conveyed by a
language system, reflections of culture by language is perceptible at diversified linguistic
levels, such as lexical, syntactic and register. In his view, only when language
acquisition and culture acquisition are synchronized, will students be able to obtain what
Hymes called ‘communicative competence’.

Hu Wenzhong, a professor in Beijing Foreign languages Institute, is commonly regarded

as one of the pioneers who advocated the teaching of culture in foreign language
education. In his book, Intercultural Communication – What it means to Chinese
learners of English (1988), he introduced some research results in intercultural
communication abroad to Chinese language professions. In another book, Culture and
Communication (1994), Hu collected 44 papers which offer the research findings in the
area in both China and abroad. Deng Yanchang and Liu Runqing are also professors from
the same university as Hu. Their book Language and Culture—the Comparison between
English and Chinese Culture (1989), deals with connotations of culture and non-verbal
communication. The same idea is presented in Wang Fuxang and Wu Hanying’s Culture
and Language (1994), a collection of papers, which discusses culture and foreign
language teaching. In Chen Shen’s Cultural Studies in Foreign language Education
(1999), cultural creativity is proposed as the objective for culture education. Hu’s recent
book Crossing Culture Barriers (2002), provides a great number of thorough examples
to show communicative barriers caused by the cultural differences. He stresses that
culture is an indispensable part of foreign language teaching.

From the review of the culture studies done by Chinese scholars, it can be seen that
scholars appeared to tackle this field of research from different approaches. These works
attempted to explore how a particular foreign culture has a remarkable impact on the
forms or use of the foreign language and foreign language teaching. Such an effort can be
seen as a reaction to the previous approach in which a foreign language was divorced

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from its relative culture as was shown in Chapter 2. All this highlighted the need to place
any study of culture in foreign language education in the framework of interaction
between Chinese culture and foreign cultures at the social and political level. Chinese
scholars have given more attention to culture dimension in language education than ever
before. In order to have a further picture of this cultural dimension of language teaching,
I will look at the books introduced from the outside which have influenced Chinese
scholars’ concepts of culture and culture teaching.

Books regarding language and culture and communication introduced by Foreign

Language Teaching and Research Press included Language and Culture by Claire
Kramsch, Communication Between Cultures by Larry A. Samovar, Richard E. Porter and
Lisa A. Stefani, Teaching Culture: Perspectives in Practice by Patrick R. Moran,
Intercultural Communication: A discourse approach by Ron Scollon and Suzanne Wong
Scollon. Influenced by these books, Chinese scholars such as Hu Wenzhong say that
there is a close link between language and culture. There doesn’t exist any language
without culture and there is no existence of culture without language. Language is not
only a carrier of culture, but also reflects culture (2002: 73). Cheng (1999) agrees to the
idea that language and culture are inseparable held by many Western scholars and he
quotes Halliday (1978), Hasan (1984), Damen (1987), (Robinson, 1985) and Byram
(1989), but Cheng argues that this inseparability doesn’t mean that everything is
unchangeable. The meaning of language depends not only upon a specific culture but
also on the changes in that culture, including those due to interaction with other cultures.
The relationship between language and culture is dynamic rather than static (1999: 210).

As for English teachers, their enthusiasm in the study of intercultural communication is

the shift from the traditional methodology to the communicative approach in EFL in
China (Song, 2004). Language teachers realized the weakness of the traditional
grammar-based teaching and tried to adopt the then prevalent communicative approach

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in the language teaching. The introduction of intercultural communication best illustrates
the interaction among language, communication and culture ((Hu & Gao, 1997). It was
commonly agreed that the goal of EFL was to develop the students’ communicative
competence in using the target language; the learning of a foreign language was believed
to be learning of a foreign culture (Song, 2004, Hu, 2002, Liu, 2003, Hu & Gao 1997).

Having discussed the ways in which scholars and teachers see the relationship between
language and culture, next I will examine how Chinese scholars define the culture, and
any influence from Western scholars on this issue.

3.3.2 Definitions of culture

In previous sections I discussed the current situation of culture studies done by Chinese
scholars and influence exerted by Western scholars’ works. In this section I will see how
Chinese scholars define ‘culture’ and any influence they got from Western scholars.
Deng Yanchang and Liu Runqing (1989) say the concept of culture as ‘The Chinese term
‘ ’(culture) in the expressions (He is illiterate) or (literacy class)
doesn’t apply. Nor does it mean culture in the sense of sophisticated tastes in literature,
music, art, etc. Here it has a much broader meaning. Following the definitions of
sociologists and anthropologists, the term culture refers to the total pattern of beliefs
customs, institutions, objects and techniques that characterize the life of a human
community (1989:3), which is similar to that given by Goodenough. According to
Goodenough (1957), culture is a combination of what people have to know and have to
believe so that their way of behaving is accepted by other members in the society. Jia
Yuxin (1997) notes the definition given by Goodenough is beneficial to the study of
intercultural communication. In Jia’s opinion, culture is what people think, say, behave
and feel. Under different ecological and natural circumstances, various nations create
their own characteristic cultures, and in turn their people develop from their own culture.

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Shu Dingfang and Zhuang Zhixang think when ‘culture’ is discussed, it is necessary to
distinguish between ‘culture perspective’ and ‘culture product’. ‘Culture perspective’ is
kind of ‘spiritual culture’ while ‘culture product’ is what is called a general concept of
‘material culture’. Culture product is an outcome of culture perspective, which is more
like the distinction made by Saussure between ‘langue’ and ‘parole’ (1996:143).

Some scholars like to adopt the definition provided by C. Kluckhohn ‘Culture is the total
way of life of a people’ (p34) (Hu, 1989; Gao, 2000; Pu, 2002). In broad terms, culture
can be divided (Pu Xiaojun, quoted in Song, 2002) into:
1) High culture, including politics, philosophy, education, literature, art, etc.;
2) Deep culture, including sense of value, made of thinking, code of conduct, religious
beliefs, criterion of morality, etc.;
3) Popular culture, including the patterns of customs, ceremony and propriety of social
contact, way of life, family patterns, and even concrete catering culture, tea culture,
football culture, etc.

From this definition it can be seen that language meaning is directly related to our
experiences. These experiences are unique to each of us not only because of the
differences we encounter as individuals while we grow up and learn to use a language,
but also because of what our culture has exposed us to. Culture is a wider system that
completely includes language as a subsystem (Hu, 1999). Linguistic competence is one
variety of cultural competence; and speech behaviour is one variety of social behaviour.
The relation of language to culture is then a relation of part to whole; they are
interdependent (Shu and Zhuang, 1996).

According to what has been discussed above, it is obvious that it is not easy to define
culture in Chinese scholars’ approaches. However, unless culture is clearly defined, it

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will be difficult to know what to do in culture teaching. Since the range of culture is so
large that it is impossible for the teacher to teach all aspects of culture in the classroom,
some aspects of culture are learnt in a formal setting, such as school, while other aspects
are learnt informally in the process of day to day living. Liu (1989) can be taken as a
summary of the Chinese views presented here. He argues that considering language has
at least 2 sets of rules: one is the rules of structure; the other is the rules of using culture
contained in culture teaching. So culture teaching refers to permeating students’
awareness of appropriate ways of using the language into language structure teaching
and learning.

3.4 Cultural Contents in Language Education

As we have seen, in China as elsewhere, the special relationship between language and
culture has been increasingly realized. The debate is not whether to teach culture in
language teaching but what culture to teach and how to teach become the major concern
among Chinese scholars. In this section Chinese scholars’ perceptions of cultural
contents will be reviewed and analyzed.

3.4.1 Chinese scholars’ perceptions on what cultural contents should be

taught in language teaching

The discussion on what cultural aspects to introduce in language education is among

Chinese scholars who offer their own opinions of cultural teaching. Zhang Zhanyi (1983),
one of the Chinese linguists, puts the cultural background knowledge in foreign language
teaching into two kinds according to its functions. They are knowledge culture and
communicative culture. Knowledge culture refers to such cultural knowledge concerning
a country’s politics, economy, education, religion, law and cultural art while
communicative culture refers to those linguistic and non-linguistic factors which affect

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the accurate expression of information, perhaps causing prejudice or misunderstanding
when two persons with different cultural background communicate with each other.
These factors include the idioms, euphemisms, taboo expressions of greetings, thanks
and so on.

Chen (1992) classified cultural contents in foreign language teaching into three types:
culture in the language structure, culture in the semantic system and culture in language
use. The first type refers to the structural differences of languages caused by different
cultural backgrounds while the second, culture in the semantic system, suggests the
unique connotations embodied in the language of the target culture. The last type,
cultural in language use, refers to appropriateness of the language used in
communication and it includes proper ways of greeting, thanking, expressing
appreciation and respect, apologizing and bidding farewell.

In Zhao Xianzhou’s book Cultural Differences and Cultural Transmission (1992), he

summarized 12 aspects of culture which may affect effective communication and should
be taught in language teaching:
1) Words that can’t be translated generated by different social-cultural background;
2) Words that have different layers of meaning because of different cultural background;
3) Words that are used in different context have different meanings;
4) Words that have different commentary and derogatory meaning in different cultural
background;
5) The potential differences in concepts due to different social background;
6) The differences caused by language information because of different cultural
background;
7) Words carrying national and traditional culture;
8) Idioms, proverbs and mottos;
9) Customs and cultural information reflected by words;

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10) Words that have specified cultural background;
11) Language structure differences caused by different cultural background;
12) Cultural differences caused by different values, psychological factors, social customs
etc. (Cited in Su and Zhuang, 1996: 147).

Though the distinction between ‘communicative culture’ and ‘knowledge culture’ lacks
enough theoretical support, it indeed has great practical significance in deciding what
cultural aspects should be taught in language teaching.

Cheng Guanglei (1992) divides the cultural contents into three kinds: language-structure
culture, semantic culture and pragmatic culture. Language-structure culture refers to the
differences in language structure caused by different cultural background. Semantic
culture is about the semantic system in which the cultural aspects are included and
cultural spirit is embodied. The items presented by Zhao above, like items (1) (2) (4) (7)
(8)(9) (10) can be categorized into the semantic culture; pragmatic culture refers to
cultural rules in language use, namely rules which can be applied in language social
background and interpersonal communication. Zhao’s items (3) (5) (6) belong to this
category. This distinction reveals the relationship of degree or layers of cultural contents,
which helps us in understanding cultural connotation or cultural factors in language
teaching.

Wei Muchun and Bian Juefei (1992) classify cultural contents into two types: cultural
behaviour and cultural psychology. They think cultural behaviours are explicitly
controlled by cultural psychology and stay on the surface of the culture while cultural
psychology is implicit value system behind cultural behaviour and is the deep part of
culture.

Hu thinks (1994) that cultural contents should be dealt with at four levels. The first one is

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at the vocabulary level, for example, connotations of words, non-equivalents,
culturally-loaded names of people and places, and frequently-used literary quotations.
The second is the discourse level at which textual patterns and stylistic features should be
analyzed. The third level is language use, the focus on the order of talking and other
pragmatic rules. The last level is non-verbal communication.

Shu and Zhuang (1996) simply classified cultural contents into (cultural-loaded
words and expressions ) and (speech culture). In their views, cultural impact on
language is mainly in two aspects: influence on meaning of words and on the structure of
speech. They admit that there exists a complicated relationship between cultural-loaded
words and speech culture. However, this classification is simply for practical purpose in
language teaching (p.149).

It is clear the classifications of cultural contents shown above have some common features. These

scholars approach the cultural contents mainly through linguistic competence. Their major concern is

placed on language structure, vocabulary with culture-loading etc. It seems that they don’t talk more

about the relationship with communicative competence. However, according to Hymes (1972), the

essence of communicative competence is that speakers of a language have to have more than

grammatical competence in order to be able to communicate effectively in a language; they also need

to know how language is used by members of a speech community to accomplish their purposes. It is

about knowing what to speak, when, with whom, how and why etc. This notion of developing

learners’ ability to use language appropriately in socio-cultural context has been reformulated by later

scholars like Canale and Swain (Canale & Swain 1980; Canale 1983) and van Ek (1986). The more

details of their interpretation of communicative competence will be dealt with in the next section

where a Western perspective will be introduced in contrast.

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3.4.2 Western scholars’ perceptions on what cultural content should be

taught in language teaching

After reviewing the Chinese scholars’ perceptions on cultural contents taught in the
language classroom, I will turn to Western scholars’ views on the same issue to see what
cultural contents they think should be taught in language teaching. In general, there are
two main perspectives influencing the teaching of culture. One is to transmit factual,
cultural information, that is institutional structures, aspects of target civilization,
information, i.e. literature and arts which are taught by language teachers as Big C
culture and colloquial information, which may focus on customs, habits, and folklore of
everyday life (see Kramsch, 1993:24) as small c. This cultural instruction with facts
rather than meanings leaves much to be desired as far as understanding of attitudes and
values are concerned. What is the cultural content of ‘mere book knowledge learned by
rote’ (Huebner, 1959:177) may blind learners to the significant aspects of their own as
well as the target group’s identity (ibid).

The other perspective, drawing on cross-cultural psychology and anthropology, has been
to embed culture within a framework of language and establish connections between
one’s own and the target culture. The limitation of this approach may leave learners to
their own ways to integrate that knowledge with the beliefs and mindsets already
obtaining in their society (Thanasoulas, 2001: 4).

In order to be systematic I will first consider views of cultural content as presented by

theorists and then look at what curriculum developers have done.

To study the literature used to be the main medium of culture learning in language
learning (Lessard-Clouston, 1997). Students learnt about the civilization associated with
language through reading (Flewelling, 1993: 339). In the time of audio lingual era in

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language teaching, Brooks (1968) ‘emphasized the importance of culture not for the
study of literature but for language learning’ and he offered sixty-four topics regarding
aspects of culture as greetings, personal possessions, taboos and smoking, verbal taboo,
restaurants and bars, town and country life. In a sense, the shift of focus is from teaching
geography and history to an anthropological approach to the study of culture. He makes
the important distinction we have seen earlier between ‘Culture with a Capital C’---art,
music, literature, politics and so on----and ‘culture with a small c’---the behavioural
patterns and way of life--- is helpful guidance to the teaching of culture. The main
contribution of his work is to make people aware that culture resides in the very fabric of
their lives, their attitudes and their beliefs.

Following Brooks, Nostrand (1974) developed six main categories of the cultural aspect
of teaching 1) culture -- regarding value systems and habits of thought; 2) society --
included organizations and family and other institutes; 3) interaction -- interpersonal and
intrapersonal; 4) ecology and technology -- included knowledge of plants and animals,
health care, travel etc.; 5) individuals -- intra/interpersonal variation; 6) cross-cultural
environment -- including attitudes towards other cultures.

Then Crawford, Lange & Lange (1984, 1987) suggested that cultural topic and cultural
theme may prove useful to teach culture in the second language classroom. Crawford &
Mclaren (2003) also make a distinction between a cultural topic and theme. A topic may
be taken to identify cultural content, for example, geography, mealtime, occupations,
school, and soccer. A theme focuses on issues, values, and/or problems related to the
topic. For example, themes related to the topic of school may be: who is disciplined in
school and for what offences? How are grades determined? How are extracurricular
activities structured; who participates in them and why (p.139). The stronger the
relationship of the theme to the lives of students, the more powerful the theme will be for
language/culture learning (ibid.: 139). The topic-based approach is very much an

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information processing approach rooted in the traditions of Life and Institutions and
aiming to ‘teach’ the students about foreign culture. The problem with this approach,
Davcheva thinks (2007), is that its content is mainly located at the level of facts about the
institutions, beliefs, values, and behaviours of a nation. Learners study the facts and the
assumption is that they will be able to learn and engage better in their academic and
professional performance.

In contrast, Byram makes a thorough checklist (1993a) which focuses on cultural content.
He examines the extent and manner in which a textbook includes a focus on each of the
areas:
▪ social identity and social groups (social class, regional identity, ethnic minorities)
▪ social interaction (different levels of formality; as outsider and insider)
▪ belief and behaviour (moral, religious beliefs, daily routines)
▪ social and political institutions(state institutions, health care, law and order, social
security, local government)
▪ socialization and the life cycle(families, schools, employment, rites of passage)
▪ national geography(geographic factors seen as being significant by members )
▪ stereotypes and national identity (what is ‘typical,’ symbols of national stereotypes)
Byram’s list of cultural content not only refers to the cultural facts, but also includes
behaviour and attitudes, and social knowledge that are used in situations the learners
might expect to encounter in their learning.

After this brief review of some theorists’ views on cultural contents, I would like to look
at the same issue from another angle, that is the curriculum approach to cultural content.

In the past decades, cultural studies in foreign language education have drawn increasing
attention from practitioners and textbook writers in China. Most of these textbooks
present cultural facts of British and American societies, for example the book written by

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Zhu (1991) for tertiary students, titled as a Basic Knowledge of British and American
Cultures in Chinese although he gives Essentials of British and American Culture as the
title in English. The majority of texts in his book are chosen from authentic sources with
many from A Background to English by P.S. Tregidgo (1971) and Life in Modern
America by P. Bromhead (1978) (cited by Feng, 2000). Another influential textbook used
by most comprehensive universities is An Introduction to the United Kingdom and the
United States of America focusing on knowledge or facts about British and American
cultures in parallel with training course of language skills. The cultural contents,
teaching methods of this course and teaching objectives are summarized by Cao (1998)
as the following table:

Table 3.1 Features of cultural study courses in China

Aspects Features
Teaching Objectives There are no specifications for culture teaching stipulated
in the Syllabus. Culture studies courses are generally seen
as supplementary things for developing students’
linguistic competence.
Major contents ▪ A great amount of general cultural knowledge about the
history, geography, politics, traditions and customs of the
target cultures
▪ Literary works and background of the authors of the
target cultures
▪ A focus on British and American cultures
Teaching Methodology ▪ Cramming (introducing students to a large amount of
factual information)
▪ Comparing and contrasting(make students compare a
cultural aspect of the target culture with that of the
native culture for differences)
Textbooks ▪ Focusing on factual information
▪ Presenting cultural knowledge in extensive reading
materials
▪ Designing exercises for improving linguistic
competence (training reading comprehension and
practicing with vocabulary)
Role of teacher ▪ Transmitting the knowledge of the target culture
▪ Emphasizing differences between the target culture and

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 the native culture
Source: Cao (1998) (translated by Feng , 2000)
The major approach seen from the table is focusing on knowledge and facts of British
and American cultures. Cao suggests that cultural teaching as this topic-based or
cultural-facts based is necessary but the knowledge transmission is only the first step
towards developing cultural understanding in learners.

A similar situation in cultural teaching does not only occur in China, but in the world
elsewhere. For example, in the University of Sofia, Bulgaria. They offer a course named
British Society and Culture for undergraduates at the department of English and
American Studies. The purpose of this course is:
The course aims to introduce students to British society and culture through lectures
and a variety of texts (from the media, documentaries, and feature films) which
analyze aspects of British culture as maps of meaning and a way of life. The course
focuses on how these create and construct British people in terms of national,
male/female or youth perspectives. It aims to give students a better idea of British
society and culture. The course also offers the films A Passage to India, The
Remains of the Day, and Chariots of Fire which are discussed in terms of what they
offer as knowledge about Britain.
Material is sequential and cumulative. Each topic will be presented in a lecture
format followed by discussion and analysis of text samples, given to students in
advance. The films will offer additional material for discussion consolidating
knowledge from previous sessions. ( Davcheva, 2007).

The approach adopted by the British Society and Culture in Bulgaria is very much an
information processing approach in the traditions of Life and Institutions/ Landeskunde/
Civilization and aiming to ‘teach’ the students about British culture. The topics arise
from a macro-description of British culture and the content is encyclopaedic (Davcheva,
2007) just as the course of An Introduction to the United Kingdom and the United States

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of America offered in China is also facts-based and culture taught as knowledge of target
language. It can be seen that the cultural studies or cultural learning is mainly through the
textbooks used by culture studies courses where the culture is taught as factual
knowledge or cultural information as discussed earlier. The following examples which
will be discussed now are a radical departure from the information loaded approach to a
more everyday life culture; a quite functional-based topics approach.

I would like to use the case study provided by Byram and Morgan (1994) on ‘Cultural
Awareness’ and the National Curriculum for England and Wales passed in 1988. The
major innovation of the national curriculum is the introduction of the concept of ‘cultural
awareness’ and recommendations for a comparative methodology (p.75). ‘Cultural
awareness’ is defined as ‘the promotion of understanding of and respect for other
cultures…one of the most important aims of modern language studies.’ And ‘to develop
pupils’ understanding of themselves and their own culture’ (DES, 1990).

The ‘programmes of study’ and ‘areas of experience’ are recommended. The ‘areas of
experience’ are an attempt to specify themes and topics which are essential for language
and culture learning in lower secondary education. There are seven areas, of which I
want to present only two areas as an example to show how the cultural topics are related
to students’ life experience as a way of learning culture rather than knowledge
transmission approach.
Area A Everyday activities
Pupils should have regular opportunities to explore in the target language topics which
deal with activities they are likely to engage in at home and at school. This should
include the language of the classroom.
Examples of topics: home life, shopping, going out, leisure activities and sports, school
life….
Area B Personal and Social life

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 ….topics which deal with aspects of their personal lives; relationships with family,
friends and others; social attitudes, customs and institutions which are relevant to them.
Examples of topics: self, family and friends, health and fitness, major institutions
(schools, hospitals, clubs, etc.) personal, teenage and social attitudes towards religion,
politics and society (including stereotyping and equal opportunities).

It is noticeable that topics at different periods are influenced differently. The distinctive
features of culture teaching in this project focus on life experiences and encourage
students to explore what they are familiar with in real life rather than imparting factual
knowledge. Under the banner of the communicative approach, the topics in the language
and culture learning are chosen more in social, interpersonal interaction.

I am so interested in this case study because the reform of the curriculum in China also
introduced the concept of ‘cultural awareness’ into the English curriculum in 2001. I
gave an analysis of the curriculum in the aspect of culture teaching in Chapter 2, section
2.4.4. Here I want to look at the purpose of teaching ‘cultural awareness’ in more detail
stated in the Chinese curriculum as follows:

Language learning has very rich cultural values. In language teaching, culture
embraces history of the country, geography, local traditions, living habits, arts and
literature as well as behavioural conducts and values. To understand and make
contact with English speaking countries and their culture would greatly help the
functional use and understanding of the English language and to nurture students'
knowledge in the global perspective as well as increasing a deeper understanding
and recognition of our own culture. In the process of teaching, teachers should
gradually develop students' cultural knowledge, both in its contents as well as their
understanding of the target culture. In the initial stage teachers should enable
students to have a general understanding of the cultural differences between

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 Chinese and foreign cultures. The cultures of English speaking countries the
students are in contact with should be closely linked to their daily lives which would
definitely help arouse students' interest in learning English. At a later and more
advance stage students' contact with English speaking countries and their scope of
language should also be enlarged, enabling them have a more sensitive and
discerning ability so as to develop intercultural competence (2001, p.12 researcher’s
translation with italics to emphasise key phrases).

The emphasis is on knowledge and understanding not communication or attitudes and

skills. Though cultural teaching is still focused mainly on ‘big C’ – even though there is
some reference to living habits – it does point out that the cultural information should
be related to learners’ existing knowledge, closely linked to learners’ lives. If there is no
linkage, modification and development, this approach will lead to the isolation of simple
facts and comparison with an apparently similar phenomenon in English speaking
countries (Byram, 1989), which may not develop students’ critical thinking of self, of
other culture, people, and artefacts.

As the discussion moved however, cultural teaching in terms of the contents in the
curriculum changed with the understanding of role of the culture in language education.
The shift from the factual knowledge/information of culture to cultural understanding is
a necessary step to develop students’ cultural awareness. Though we don’t have a
cultural syllabus, the cultural teaching is through a certain course called An Introduction
to the United Kingdom and the United States of America for undergraduates as it was
mentioned above. If the Cultural Studies Syllabus named Branching Out (British
Council, 1998) is looked at, it can be seen that the Syllabus gives little weight to themes
and topics, as suggested by theorists quoted above, as organizers of factual information.
Its driving principle is the development of complex sets of skills and they are the ones
which shape and determine the approach to cultural content. Why in this Syllabus the

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skills oriented approach rather the topics-based approach is adopted and considered
vitally important in teaching culture in foreign language education can be seen in the
following extract from the syllabus ‘One of the fundamental aims of the Syllabus is to
develop our students’ intercultural awareness’ (p.23). The implication is that such
awareness grows out of a combination of knowledge and skills. While it might be felt
that the obvious way to organize a syllabus is around topics, this would give
disproportionate weight to factual information at the expense of the acquisition of
intercultural skills.

In this Syllabus the skills are organized in four major sets: critical reading and listening
skills; comparing and contrasting skills; ethnographic skills and research skills. It is clear
that the skills-based approach is a transitional approach from topic-to-skills in terms of
cultural teaching. The traditional approach of cultural topics presented in course books is
perhaps inevitable, but ‘cultural awareness grows out of a combination of knowledge and
skills’ (Syllabus 1998:13). It is thus understood that it is important to help the students
develop their ability to understand by means of questioning and analysis of the
information supplied by the course book; it is also significant for them to be able to apply
the appropriate cultural reading skills to engage critically with the information and make
it into personal knowledge. To make this to happen, students need to be taken beyond the
surface of meaning, to explore issues of meaning and value. The point implied here is the
notion of students as ethnographer. Ethnographic skills should be developed.

So far I have discussed the cultural contents in language teaching from the theorists’
points of view, and from the curriculum approach to cultural contents. It is noticeable
that the transition of cultural teaching is from cultural hard facts instruction (cultural
specific) to cultural skills approach. The purpose of this shift is not only to equip students
with cultural knowledge in the target language they are learning but most importantly to
promote students’ ability to understand, to discover, to question and deconstruct any

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cultural information that they encounter which may diverse from their home culture. The
links with the knowledge and skills in cultural teaching----cultural information and
cultural understanding---could be seen from the curriculum approach in cultural teaching.
This approach is well reflected in Byram’s work (1997) and he suggests cultural aspects
of teaching include knowledge and skills and attitudes in order to develop students’
intercultural communicative competence (ICC). He points out that teachers should arrive
at a catalogue of objectives that includes knowledge, skills, attitudes and educational
factors in teaching (ICC) competence. I want to focus on what knowledge; skills and
attitudes are included and meant by him and will repeat here for convenience what was
presented in the earlier chapter.

Table 3.2. Factors in intercultural communication (Byram, 1997:34)

Knowledge Skills Attitudes Critical

Of self and other Interpret&relate Relativising cultural awareness
Of interaction (savoircomprendre) self valuing
Individual and Skills other (savoir
social (savoirs) Discover and /or etre)
interact
(savoir apprendre/faire)

The knowledge he refers to is of social groups and their products and practices in one’s
own and in one’s own interlocutor’s country, and of general processes of societal and
individual interaction. Byram mentions two kinds of skills: skills of interpreting and
relating: the ability to interpret a document or event from another culture, to explain it
and relate it documents from one’s own and skills of discovery and interaction: the
ability to acquire new knowledge of a culture and cultural practices and the ability to
operate knowledge, attitudes and skills under the constraints of real-time communication
and interaction. By attitudes he means curiosity and openness, readiness to suspend
disbeliefs about other cultures and belief about one’s own.

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From the above it could be seen the knowledge of inter/culture he introduces is rather
general. They are etic in the sense that they depend on universal categories (Bennett, et al,
2003). The skills are emphasized when teaching culture so as to develop students’
intercultural communicative competence as a final goal in language education. Only
Knowledge-based is not enough to develop students’ understanding of others, skills and
attitudes are also vital to achieve this purpose.

3.4.3 Summary
In this section, I mainly review what culture should be taught in language education. I
first have a general look at cultural contents some theorists proposed which have been
centred around Big C including the institutions (social, political and economic), history ,
geography, products of literature, arts etc ; and little c, including those aspects of daily
living, like housing, food, transportations, all patterns of behaviours, customs and values.
Then I further probe this issue by discussing curriculum approaches to cultural content:
topic-based and skills-based approach to cultural contents which enables me to see the
shift from the cultural information instruction to cultural understanding. The focus is on
the cultural skills development though the cultural information linked. Finally I have
reviewed another approach to cultural competence teaching through the intercultural
perspective in order to develop intercultural communicative competence of learners.
This approach is not cultural-specific but rather cultural-general focusing on
internalizing cognitive frameworks for cultural analysis, overcoming ethnocentrism,
developing appreciation and respect for one’s own culture and for cultural difference,
understanding and acquiring skills in basic cultural adaptation processes, (Bennett et al
2003). The cultural-specific approach is to achieve competence in a target culture. In this
sense, specific-cultural learning is a direct parallel to specific-language learning, where
competence in a second/foreign language is the goal. In language learning, knowing
grammar and vocabulary alone does not equal competence and it is equally the case that
knowing the objective aspects of target culture is insufficient for specific intercultural

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competence.

So far I have considered what culture has to be taught in language teaching from the
point of view of the relationship between language and culture and the implications for
the contents of language teaching. Later in this study, I will see what school teachers
think about cultural content in language classroom, which will be discussed in Chapter 5.
I am sure this part of the review will also provide me with a better understanding of this
issue for future teachers’ training. In the next section, what methods should be used to
teach culture will be reviewed to pursue the research question further and also to provide
a better basis for teacher training in the future.

3.5 How to teach culture in foreign language teaching

In the previous section I discussed what cultural content should be included in foreign
language teaching. After this issue was made clear, I must consider the methodology to
teach culture in the language classroom. Can the same approach be used to teach culture
as to teach language? If the language teaching is to develop students’ linguistic ability
which is being taught through a task-based approach advocated in the new curriculum in
China, can teaching culture be approached in the same way aiming to develop students’
communicative competence? Any methodology of teaching must take the broader
setting and context into consideration and should be based on clearly articulated
principles and aims (Byram 1989: 143). Language teaching should have as one of its
central aims the development of ‘intercultural understanding’, which includes but goes
further than communicative competence. (Byram 1991: 200). I come to realize that
language teaching not only promotes students’ linguistic competence, communicative
ability, but also equally importantly that language teaching should always seek to
develop students’ intercultural understanding and intercultural competence. Having
clarified the aims of teaching language i.e. that intercultural understanding is given

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central importance, I will now discuss what approaches or methods of culture teaching
should be adopted in language classrooms.

To prevent the proliferation of idiosyncratic approaches in culture teaching that typified

the wave of culture fever in China (Yang , 2005), some basic principles are needed to
guide educational practice. The cultural dimension neglected in the language education
should be given its ‘rightful place’ in both terms of form and content. This doesn’t mean
shifting completely from traditional language teaching to cultural teaching, so as to set
up a new teaching model which is culture-centred, but does imply that language
education approaches as presently conceived need to be reformed to make culture
content clearer and more important. In this section, the basic principles to guide the
teaching of culture, the possible factors which influence the choices of cultural teaching
methodology in language education, and finally the most common approaches to the
teaching of culture in general as well as techniques and methods of culture teaching will
be analyzed.

3.5.1 The basic principles of culture teaching in EFL in China

Zhao and Jang (2002) propose five basic principles in cultural teaching which they term
‘acculturation’. I will continue to use the term ‘culture teaching’ in this study in
accordance with the whole discussion of the previous sections. The following section
paraphrases and translates the principles put forward by Zhao and Jang.

1) The principle of communication:

The purpose of teaching culture is to develop students’ communicative competence, and
it goes without saying that the principle of communication should be prominent. Cultural
content should be focused on those parts of communication which may have direct
effects on students’ understanding of verbal and non-verbal communication between the

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learners and members of other cultures.

2) The principle of cultural background

Most Chinese students lack first-hand experience of foreign cultures. The major access
to foreign culture associated with the language being taught is through the textbook and
teacher’s instruction. However, the students do need to acquire general background
knowledge of culture in the target language they are learning. Cultural background
knowledge should be introduced to students as curriculum content in order for them to
understand the language better.

3) The principle of comparison

Differences between the students’ mother tongue and the foreign language they are
learning are a major obstacle for communication. For Zhao and Jang (2002) the starting
point should be to acculturate differences of language and culture beginning with the
meaning contained both in language form and non-language form. The focus of cultural
content therefore should be on similarities and differences between the foreign language
and students’ own language. Specially Zhao and Jang use the term ‘
(culture related, culture missing and culture different)’ to characterize what should
be taught in the language class. The general aim is to develop students’ cultural
awareness; to draw on students’ own knowledge, beliefs and values which form a basis
for appreciating different cultures. Writing in the North American context Robert Lado
proposed, 50 years ago (1957), a similar schema to Zhao and Jang’s. According to Lado
there are three types of the contrastive analysis which are still useful today: 1) same
form, different meaning, 2) same meaning, different form, 3) same form, same meaning,
and different distribution (cited by Byram 1994: 45). Taken together Lado’s contrastive
proposal and Zhao and Yang’s comparative principle provide a model for contrast and
comparison in language-culture teaching. For example, vocabulary, semantic structures,
idioms and fields within which lexical items bear different connotations can be located

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systematically in these approaches. If these differences in the foreign language are to be
compared and contrasted with students’ equivalent items in their own language, students
can begin to gain insight into the underlying schemata and perspectives of language and
culture learning (Byram 1994: 44).

4) The principle of stages

It is well known that ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’. Similarly, argue Zhao and Jang,
foreign language teaching must proceed from the elementary to the profound and from
the easy to the difficult. In so doing, students’ language proficiency and comprehension
ability should be taken into account in deciding on culture content in a language teaching
curriculum.

5) The principle of moderation

The cultural teaching content should be carefully chosen and the quantity must be
appropriate. Teachers must prepare cultural content meticulously, taking care to relate
the selected content to students’ language knowledge, such as functional items involved
in communication and general topic of daily conversation. Essentially Zhao and Jang
advise that culture content should be selected according to precise teaching tasks and
objectives at any time. Culture content can’t be acculturated without consideration of
students’ ability of acceptance, meaning their likelihood of absorbing the new
knowledge.

In the same vein, Shu and Zhuang (1996) suggest three important principles in teaching
culture; the principles of practicality, graduality and appropriateness. Cultural content
should be closely linked to language content, connected to the students’ life for daily
communication; and linked to students’ future careers. It is the third of these which is not
mentioned by Zhao and Jang and thus adds a new factor to consider. The purpose is to
make students feel the culture being taught is not too abstract, too extensive or too

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elusive. And thus, students’ interest in learning culture and language can be motivated.
When teaching culture, students’ language proficiency, ability to accept and
comprehension ability should be considered. The cultural content should be covered in a
systematic way at different stages taking the consistency of the content into account.
Thus the unfortunate phenomenon of fragmentary cultural content can be avoided;
because culture is very extensive, selection becomes a crucial issue. The appropriate
choice of cultural content thus is vital in the teaching of the culture. In Shu and Zhuang’s
opinion (1996), cultural content should embody the essential aspects of a culture and it
should be representative of mainstream culture. These writers thus place more emphasis
than Zhao and Jang on the question of selection. However, unfortunately they don’t
identify which parts of culture teaching are essential. They only provide general
guideline to the issue of selection.

The above principles are major guidelines for teachers in the teaching of culture in China
today, but as I have argued there are weaknesses:
- lack of details about selection criteria
and strengths:
- reasons for links with communication are well explained
- awareness of the specific conditions in which culture is taught (as recommended by
Byram)
- syntactic consideration of the role of comparison and contrast (as Lado suggested)

3.5.2 Factors influencing the choice of methodology

Some scholars have suggested different approaches to the teaching of culture as well as
activities and techniques associated with them. However, it is important to remember
that choice depends on many factors, the most important being:
▪ the situation in which the language is taught;
▪ the learner’s age and command of the foreign language;

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▪ the teacher
Stern (1992 p.223) distinguishes between three situations in which the teaching of
culture can take place:

Culture is taught in language courses, where students are physically and often
psychologically removed from the reality of the second culture. In this case culture
teaching provides background and context and helps the learners visualize the reality.
This seems to be the most common situation for teaching culture in many countries,
including China.

Culture is taught in situation, which prepares a student for a visit or work in a new
environment. Even though the student is physically far away from the culture, he/she is
psychologically prepared and also motivated to learn. There are more opportunities for
young people to study and work abroad than there used to be at the time of Stern’s
writing.

Culture is taught in culture setting (e.g., to immigrants, students studying in a target

language community). In this case, students may need more help to come to terms with
the foreign environment to avoid cultural misunderstandings. Brown (2000:189)
considers this situation the best for second language and culture teaching. It is clearly
becoming far more common because of the major phenomenon of migration.

The question arises whether there are new factors which these authors did not (or in
Stern’s case could not) take into consideration. One of the factors is clearly the effect of
modern communications and the internet. Another is the impact of internationalization of
societies even when students do not travel - for example the effect of the Olympic Games
in China.

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Each situation determines the aims of culture teaching and the range of topics that are
considered important to teach. When the main aim is to provide cultural knowledge, as is
commonly the case in situation (i), as in China, the most suitable activities might be,
watching videos and films, reading and discussing literary and newspaper texts. In
situation (ii) or (iii), learners need various skills and cultural practices. These can be best
developed through role plays, dialogues and drama.

At all times, one has to bear in mind students’ age, maturity, command of language and
educational level. Byram (1997a: 55-56) emphasizes that ‘teaching and learning aims
which include ‘understanding’, ‘tolerance’, ‘empathy’ and related notions presuppose a
psychological readiness in learners which may be age-dependent, may be influenced by
social factors, may be furthered or even inhibited by exposure to a foreign culture and
language.’ In a similar vein, Durant (1997:31) adds that ‘enhanced language proficiency
is essential’, especially when learners wish to continue their studies independently
outside the classroom. And finally, the choice of an approach and a method depends on
the teacher and his/her preference as well as the level of preparation.

Teachers must be prepared to deal with students learning facts or opinions that may
conflict with their own or what they regard as natural. Byram (1997a: 62) states that ‘the
teacher should be aware of the nature of the challenge to learners’ understanding of their
culture and identity’. Relevant to this is Sercu’s (2005) summary of the main
characteristics of teacher qualifications for intercultural foreign language teaching.
These include teachers’ attitudes, knowledge and skills. Among other things, Sercu
stresses that if teachers want to educate learners towards intercultural learning, they have
to be intercultural learners themselves. In order to achieve best outcomes all the factors
have to be considered.

In the light of this discussion the following factors need to be taken into consideration in

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the region under study in this thesis:
a) Owing to the fact that multiple languages are used interchangeably in English class in
my region (students’ own language, Chinese and English), the teaching context must be
taken into account as was suggested by Stern.
b) Learners’ age and their English proficiency should be considered. I would add that
learners’ life and learning background are other factors to consider because these factors
may also affect their learning in an ethnic area.
c) Teachers, among other factors, are the most important element in this new situation
in terms of cultural teaching in language classroom (as suggested by Byram and Sercu).
Their beliefs, their understanding, and their willingness are decisive factors to culture
teaching, which will be one of the major concerns in this study and I will elaborate this
issue in the section 3.6 afterwards.

3.5.3 Methods versus approaches

It is important to distinguish between ‘method’ and ‘approach’ in culture teaching.
Knowing the differences between these two commonly confused terms can help
language teachers select appropriately i.e. non-idiosyncratically from among the many
practices available for culture teaching, which is related to the general point made above
by Yang 2005.

The research literature contains many definitions of these terms. Particularly helpful is
Brown’s (2002:9) clear explanation of method, citing Anthony as follows:

More than three decades ago, Edward Anthony (1963) gave us a definition that has
quite admirably withstood the test of time. His concept of method was the second of
the three hierarchical elements, namely, approach, method, and technique. An
approach, according to Anthony, was a set of assumptions dealing with the nature of
language, learning and teaching. Method was defined as an overall plan for

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 systematic presentation of language based on the selected approach. It followed that
techniques were specific classroom activities consistent with a method, and
therefore in harmony with an approach as well.

In Brown’s words the differences between ‘approach’, ‘method’ and ‘technique’ are
succinctly and usefully defined. However, twenty years later, Richards and Rodgers
(1986:29) define the ‘method’ in a more detailed way and also disrupt the schema put
forward by Brown:

Method (in language teaching) is a way of teaching a language which is based on

systematic principles and procedures, i.e. which is an application of views on how a
language is best taught and learnt. Different methods of language teaching such as
the direct method, the audio-lingual method, the grammar translation method, the
silent way and communicative approach result from different views of the nature of
language, the nature of language learning goals and objectives in teaching, the type
of syllabus to use, the role of teachers, learners, and instructional materials, the
techniques and procedures to use.

It can be seen that what constitutes teaching methods have changed in these two views.
For hundreds of years the teaching profession has been searching for the optimal
teaching method for foreign languages (Brown, 2002; Byram, 1999). An old Chinese
saying ‘ ’ suggests that there is no fixed method to follow and no method for all.
Perhaps for this reason there is endless discussion and searching for ideal teaching
methods. In recent years the predominant teaching method in language acquisition has
been on the development of classroom tasks and activities (Nunan, 1991:28), at least as
far as TESOL is concerned. The task-based approach is being introduced into Chinese
language classrooms. The move from general methods to an approach has emerged
from the realization that ‘designer methods were not leading to effective teaching’

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(Brown 2002: 11). According to Brown, the definition of an ‘approach’ to language
pedagogy is:

not just set of static principles ‘set in stone’. It is, in fact, a dynamic composite of
energies within a teacher that changes (or should change, if one is a growing teacher)
with continued experience in learning and teaching.

Pedagogy is a dynamic process and the students’ needs must be met by taking into
consideration the character and dynamics of the learning process. Teachers become
aware of the need to consciously blend designed tasks and techniques based on how they
approach their teaching of language rather than by inventing new methods. Therein lies
the effectiveness of relying on a principled approach. In short, a method implies that a
methodology needs to be applied to one’s class. A principled approach demands that
one’s classroom practice be relevant to a particular class of learners. In other words, an
approach is always subject to change based on what the teacher senses, observes and
experiences in his/her language class.

Considering what is happening in China, I may say, approach is often mentioned in

recent years as suggested by Yang 2005. Therefore I decided to use ‘approach’ to be
consistent in this study.

The next section will first review the assumptions underlying approaches to culture
teaching held by some scholars and then look at particular techniques which are
workable in the classroom.

3.5.4 The most common approaches to the teaching of culture

There are many different approaches in the history of culture teaching. In very broad
terms, they can be divided into two: those which focus only or mostly on the culture of

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the country whose language is being studied (the mono-cultural approach) and those
which are based on comparing learners’ own and the other culture (the comparative
approach).

The mono-cultural approach is typical for courses like Landeskunde, area studies, and
British Life and Institutions. In general, this approach is considered inadequate
nowadays because it doesn’t consider students’ individual or personal culture while the
comparative approach is related to students’ culture. Buttjes and Byram (1991:13, cited
in Edginton 2000:136) claim that instead of providing learner with ‘one-way flow of
cultural information’, they should be encouraged to reflect on their own and foreign
culture.

The comparative approach aims to correct their deficiency of ‘one-way flow’, drawing
on learners’ knowledge, beliefs and values. Byram and Morgan state that learners can not
shake off their own culture and simply step into another. For learners to deny their own
culture is to deny their own being (Byram and Morgan, 1994: 43).While the essence of
the comparative approach is to provide a double perspective it does not mean that
learners have to evaluate which culture is better.

Instead, students learn that there are many ways of doing things and their way is not the
only possible one. So the comparative approach does involve evaluation but not in terms
of comparison with something which is better, but in terms of improving what is all too
familiar. Comparison makes the strange, the other familiar, and makes the familiar, the
self, strange—therefore easier to re-consider (Byram & Planet, 2000:189).

The comparative approach may begin either with the strange or the familiar.
Traditionally, the primary focus in the foreign language classroom is given to the target
language. However, some scholars emphasise the need to deal with the familiar first.

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And then move to the strange (ibid).

Comparison gives learners a new perspective on their own language and culture and
questions their ‘taken-for-granted nature’ (Byram, 1998: 6). Through comparison
learners discover differences and similarities of their own and other cultures. This, in
turn, can lead to increased knowledge, understanding and acceptance.

Lessard-Clouston (1996) identifies three major approaches in relation to the foreign

language and culture teaching curriculum. The first is an eclectic one, where culture is
only incorporated into the curriculum as desired or needed (also see Rivers, 1981;
Morain, 1987). The second is an integrated one, where culture is explicitly incorporated
into the curriculum through a cultural syllabus (also Stern, 1983, 1992; and Hammerly,
1982). The third approach is cultural studies in the foreign language curriculum, where a
separate part of the language course is dedicated to a cultural or intercultural studies
programme (also Murphy, 1988; Byram, 1988, 1989; and Shotton, 1991).But
Lessard-Clouston says little about the last two approaches and thinks the eclectic
approach is not appropriate because ‘a learner’s ability to understand, recognize, and
address the sociocultural issues in communication is fundamental to his/her
communicative competence, and it is therefore crucial for teachers to be much more
deliberate in what and how teach culture in second language or foreign language
education’ (ibid. : 199).

Risager (1998: 243-252) describes four approaches to culture teaching: the intercultural
approach; the multicultural approach; the transcultural approach and the foreign-cultural
approach. I will discuss them in more detail.
The Intercultural approach is based on the idea that comparison is used to teach culture.
The focus is on the target culture, but the relationship between the learner’s own country
and the country/countries where the language is spoken is dealt with. Thus comparisons

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of the two cultures may develop learners’ understanding of both. The aim is to develop
learners’ positive attitudes and to promote intercultural communicative competence,
which would enable them to function as mediators between the two cultures. The
approach has been increasingly recognized since 1980s. But this approach seems
inadequate as it is ‘blind to actual intercultural characters of almost all existing countries
and states’ (Risager, 1998: 246) and that teachers should use the multicultural approach
is suggested.

The Multicultural approach draws on the idea that several cultures may coexist within
the boundaries of one and same society or state. The multicultural approach includes
focus on the ethnic and linguistic diversity of the target country/countries as well as on
the learner’s own. This approach emphasizes the principle that cultures are not
monolithic (Risager, 1998: 21). The main disadvantage with this approach is that the
target is hard to identify. There is no one foreign culture, nor is there any definite pairing
of cultures as sometimes is done in the intercultural approach (Yin, 2006: 103).

The Transcultural approach: the idea behind this is that in the modern world cultures are
interwoven due to extensive tourism, migration, a world-wide communication system,
economic interdependence and globalization. It is also reflected in the fact that many
people speak foreign languages as lingua francas. The transcultural approach, therefore,
deals with the foreign language as an international language. The aim is to teach learners
to use the language for international communication and if it could be argued that the
language ceases to be tied to any specific culture. However, Byram (1997:55) contends
that although it is possible to introduce topics which are of universal significance in all
cultures, such an approach leaves learners without topics which are characteristic of a
particular country, which is the one which ‘characterizes the uniqueness for the language
learners’. Such an approach also runs the risk of denying enduring links between
language and culture.

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The mono-cultural approach in Risager’s list is represented by what she calls the
foreign- cultural approach. This is based on the concept of a single culture corresponding
to a single nation and focuses on the language/culture link. It does not deal with the
learner’s own country nor with relations between the two. The teaching aim is to develop
so-called native speaker communicative and cultural competence. This approach was
dominant until 1980s but is criticized nowadays because of its lack of relationship
between cultures and the unattainable and unnecessary goal of native competence
(Byram, 1997a, 1997b).

In addition to the above and within these general frameworks, there are some other
approaches to cultural teaching in foreign language teaching, which centre on various
aspects of a given culture or concentrate on developing certain skills in learners.

The theme-based or thematic approach, mentioned earlier, to the teaching of culture is

based on identified themes, such as value, ceremony, love, honour, beauty, family, living,
and religion and education , etc, which are considered as typical of a culture. Though it
is mono-culture in nature, it shows the relationships and values in a given culture and,
therefore, helps learners to understand it better. Nostrand (1974, cited in Seelye 1993:
133) argues that relationships in a given society can be best taught when grouped under
main themes. Learners who are aware of underlying the themes of another culture are
thought to react appropriately to stimuli like jokes, cartoons, television programmes, and
films (Nostrand 1967, cited in Valette 1986: 194).

The topic-based approach focuses on more general and cross-sectional topics which
involve various cultural issues. According to Mclean (1994) a ‘topic-based approach can
provide an oblique yet original encounter with British life and culture..’
Wisniewska-Brogowska argues that the topic-based approach to the teaching of culture

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brings life to class and develops a more holistic and integrated view of the target culture.
She goes on to say that ‘knowing about the people who use the language, understanding
their behaviours, beliefs and customs increases cultural awareness and promotes greater
personal interest both in the language and culture.’ Durant (1997:31), who is also in
favour of the topic-based approach, stresses that learning should take place ‘on the basis
of analytic and comparative methods.’

The problem-solving approach aims at getting learners interested in the other culture and
encourages them to do some research on their own. This is a means of involving students
in the development of skills in presenting ideas, explaining positions and arriving at
solutions. As students will encounter many practical problems in every day life when
interacting with another culture, effectively this approach seems to hope that students
will acquire their own problem-solving strategy since teachers can not provide examples
of every conflict in the classroom that students will experience. As long as students have
certain underlying knowledge and skills to cope with conflicts, they will be better
prepared to handle the problems for themselves.

After reviewing the common approaches to cultural teaching, I assume the multicultural
approach and topic-based approach appear to be the most applicable in my teaching
context. Xinjiang is an ethnically diverse place in terms of linguistics and cultures. There
are Ugyur, Kazak, and Hui people----in total thirteen ethnic groups. In the language
classroom there are at least three or four ethnic group students studying together with
Han students who are the majority. Each has their own language and culture. Language
teaching involves at least three languages 1) English-Uygur 2) English-Chinese and 3)
Chinese-Uygur-English. How can the language teaching programme foster Han and
other ethnic students to gain intercultural communicative competence through English
language teaching and learning with the target language culture and mainstream Han
culture acculturation to eliminate cultural barriers in communication? This is a major

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challenge.

The topic-based approach, I think, is also applicable in my context because this approach
to teaching culture can bring life to class and develops a more holistic and integrated
view of the target culture. Knowing about people who use the language, understanding
their behaviours, beliefs and customs increases culture awareness and promotes greater
personal interest both in the language and the culture (Wisniewska-Brogowska, 2004)
and learning can take place ‘on the basis of analytic and comparative methods’
(Durant,1977:31).

If the multicultural approach is to be adopted in the language teaching in Xinjiang, there

appears a gap in teaching methodology for school teachers because they were trained to
acquire cultural knowledge through the mono-cultural approach based on existing
cultural knowledge in their university or college education. The earlier review of
approaches needs to be applied in the realization of the goals of language teaching.
Methodology courses already have a set of beliefs about language learning, and these
beliefs are formed by the ‘internalization of how they were taught and their perceptions
how they learnt’ (Leloup, 1995: 137) and in turn affect everything teachers do in the
classroom, whether these beliefs are implicit or explicit (Williams and Burden 1997).
The situation I face now strongly suggests that teachers need training in how to teach
culture in terms of culture teaching theory, teaching contents and teaching methodology
in order to meet with the new requirements in the new situation.

3.5.5 Techniques and activities for teaching culture

There is a great variety of techniques and activities developed for integrating culture into
language teaching. Different scholars group them according to different principles.
Stern (1992: 223-232) writes about techniques of culture teaching and presents them in
eight groups according to what he calls different approaches. These are:

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▪ creating an authentic classroom environment (techniques include, for example, displays
and exhibitions of realia);
▪ providing cultural information (for example, cultural aside, cultural capsule and culture
cluster);
▪ cultural problem solving (for example student research);
▪ behavioural and affective aspects (for example drama and mini-drama);
▪ cognitive approaches (for example student research);
▪ the role of literature and humanities (for example, literary readings and watching
films);
▪ real-life exposure to target culture (for example, visits to the class by native speakers,
pen-pals and visits to other countries);
▪ making use of cultural community resources (for example, when a foreign language
learning takes place in the target-language community, the everyday environment can be
used as a resource).

In a similar vein, but with a different characterization, Hughes (1994: 167-168) lists
techniques for teaching cultural awareness including eight ‘vehicles’ which he considers
the most practical. Chastain (1988: 308-315) titles the chapter where he describes
methods of teaching culture Modes of presenting culture, using the terms approach and
technique interchangeably. He makes a distinction between the in-class and out-classes
situations.

The following list of techniques and methods is compiled from various sources and are
mostly meant to be used in class. The sources given in brackets are not the only ones that
mention each particular technique. They, however, are the ones which provide useful
examples or insights, and the original terminology has been retained.

The cultural aside (see, for example, Stern 1992; Chastain 1998; Henrichsen 1998)

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 It is often an unplanned, brief cultural comment. Nostrand (1974: 298) calls the
technique an incidental comment). Its advantage is that it helps to create a cultural
content for language items as well as helps learners to make mental associations similar
to those that native speakers make. The disadvantage is that the cultural information
presented to students is likely to be disordered and incomplete.

This technique of teaching culture is also mentioned by some Chinese scholars (Shu and
Zhang 1996; Liu 1999; Yang 2005). Textbooks widely used in China adopt this way of
cultural aside to introduce cultural knowledge. The authors or compilers of the textbooks
add some cultural notes in texts which may be predicted to be difficult for students to
understand, for example some words and difficult sentences with cultural connotation in
them. Teachers explain cultural phenomena according to the notes provided by the
textbook. Its advantages are that it is easy for teachers to pick up the cultural knowledge
related to the text they are going to teach and more flexible because they are no fixed
topics of culture. The disadvantage is the lack of systematic presentation of cultural
content.

Culture capsules: (developed by Taylor and Sorensen 1961; also referred to by Chastain
1988; Stern 1992; Seelye 1993) These are short explanations of differences between two
cultures, which are usually done orally with the teacher giving a brief lecture on the
chosen cultural point and then leading a discussion about the differences between
cultures. In this technique students are required to answer questions relating to the
material, which is about a typical incident or event in the target culture. The main
advantage of using a culture capsule is its ‘compactness and practical manageable
quality’ (Stern 1992: 240). Another advantage is that learners become involved in the
discussion and are drawn to consider the basic characteristics of their own culture
(Chastain 1988: 310). The problem is that there is no principle of selection - how does
the teacher decide what the focus should be?

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Culture clusters (first suggested by Meade and Morain in 1973; also referred to by
Chastain 1988; Stern 1992; Seelye 1993) is a combination of two or more culture
capsules, which can form a cluster. Parts of a cultural cluster can be presented in
succeeding lessons. In the final lesson an activity is carried out where the set of capsules
is integrated into a single sequence. The advantage of a culture cluster according to Stern
(1992: 226) is that besides introducing different aspects of culture it ‘lends itself well to
behavioural training’. But this technique is difficult for Chinese teachers to use because a
cluster activity is usually conducted by some sort of activity, for example a dramatization
and role-play. The class-size and time-constraint problems would probably prevent
Chinese teachers from using this technique.

The audio-video unit (see, for example, Chastain 1988 :311, Stern 1992: 226, 241, Shu
and Zhuang 1996: 151). This was first developed to provide practical listening
comprehension and to enliven the listening situation. Now it has been extended to
involve visual support for students to understand what they are listening to and watching.
The popular video in China ‘The Album of U.S.A’ is widely used in nearly all
universities or colleges as visual teaching materials. It is a vivid and good way to
introduce the target culture to students who can indirectly experience everyday life in the
U.S through the video (Zhang 2003).

The micrologue (see, for example, Chastain 1988: 312) is a technique where culture is
made the focus of language teaching. The teacher chooses a cultural passage that can be
read out in class. Students listen to it and then answer the questions asked by the teacher
according to the passage. After that students are asked to give an oral summary and,
finally, to write the material as dictation. The advantage of this technique, according to
Chastain, is that teacher does not need to have any special cultural expertise and it takes
only a small amount of time. This method of teaching language in terms of cultural

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aspects of teaching is still commonly used by Chinese teachers.

The culture self-awareness technique (see Chastain 1988:311) aims to raise students’
consciousness of basic beliefs that govern their own values, beliefs and actions. Teachers
may use sensitivity exercises, self- assessment questionnaires and problem solving. This
is supposed to be for experienced or advanced students. Chinese students are generally
unfamiliar with other cultures, and it must be difficult for them to evaluate and assess
themselves in the early stages. After being trained through case studies, comparing and
contrasting, culture capsules and clusters, however, they will be more aware of their own
culture and other cultures. The teacher should guide them in developing self-awareness.

The quiz or multiple-choice (see, for example, Cullen 2000) can be used to test materials
that the teacher has already taught, but it is also useful in learning new information.
Cullen stresses that it is not important whether students can get the right answer or not,
but by predicting or guessing, they will be more interested in finding it out. The right
answer will be provided by the teacher, through reading, by watching video etc. Quizzes
are high-interest activity that can keep students involved. But this cannot be taken to
extremes. For example, multi-choice exercises are used excessively in language learning
in China. Students are busily involved doing many kinds of multi-choice exercises in
order to pass exams. One Chinese scholar has criticized this by saying that through doing
multi-choice exercises to learn English language can not develop students’
communicative competence (Cheng 2001).
.
So far I have discussed techniques and activities of teaching culture. Some techniques
used by teachers such as drama, webquest, problem solving that have not been discussed.
The list cannot be exhaustive. Through the flexible use of these techniques, students can
learn about cultures holistically. Plenty of information enables students to be aware of
specific characteristics of their native culture and of other cultures. An effective

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technique helps students to develop understanding and empathy about different cultures.
Students can learn background knowledge of the target culture by means of these
techniques. In this study, I have investigated what common techniques teachers are using
to teach culture in classrooms and I want to know if there is any difference between
techniques recommended by scholars and those used by teachers. The detailed
discussion will be presented later in the data analysis chapter.

Summary
In this section, I have reviewed the literature on cultural teaching methodology from
approaches of their underlying assumptions to particular teaching techniques applicable
in the classrooms based on these approaches. The major division in approaches is
between mono-cultural (foreign-cultural) focused on the target language culture and the
comparative-approach centred on both target-language culture and learner’s own culture.
The advantages and disadvantages of each approach were analyzed. I also discussed the
inter/multi/trans-cultural approaches proposed by Risager which all involved elements of
comparison of differences between the target culture and learner’s own culture. The most
common techniques and methods to teach cultures were reviewed which would provide
strong support to the future teacher training on cultural teaching. Some other issues such
as factors which may influence the choice of teaching methods and some basic principles
were also discussed. In the next section, I will discuss teachers’ roles in cultural teaching
and what can be done with/for them.

3.5.6 Teacher roles

In the previous sections, I have discussed what cultural contents should be taught and
what techniques should be used to teach culture. Now I will focus on what teachers
should do to have students appreciate different cultures and expand their views without
risking their identity and without oversimplifying or over-generalizing their ideas
towards different cultures.

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Trends in educational pedagogy have traditionally contributed to the definition of roles
and responsibilities of language teachers, and these have usually been linked to specific
learning contexts. In the twenty-first century, it is necessary for teachers to understand
the full complexity and interrelatedness of their roles and responsibilities. Social and
political changes, the need for intercultural cooperation in the global village, the
information and communication explosion and the changing views on language teaching
and learning, with the emphasis on constructivist and lifelong autonomous learning, are
all factors that contribute to the definition of language teacher’s role today (Sturtridge,
1997; Byram & Risager, 1999). Under this new situation I need to consider what the
role(s) of teacher should be and I will have brief review of literature focusing on
teachers’ role from two perspectives of western and Chinese scholars.

The role image of teachers held in China

In China, there are some metaphors to depict the role of teachers. To name some in the
following:
The candle-image of teacher: the role of teachers is compared to a candle, burning itself
(imparting knowledge) and shedding light to others (to students). This role-image of
teacher is questioned because if teachers burn out of themselves without learning
anything new, this does not match the concept of life-long learning. Therefore this role
should be changed into the altar lamp which burns day and night. It implies that teachers
are not only casting light to students but also refilling themselves at the same time (Han,
2002)

The bucket-theory-image of teacher: It is accepted that if a teacher wants to give students

a bowl of water, he/she must have a bucket of water to give. Again the quality of the
water in the bucket may be questioned; is it fresh water (updated knowledge) or stale
water (out of date); on the other hand, is it the right portion (method) to give, if the

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position is not proper (slant or askew), students may possibly not get it into their bowl; if
the portion is too much or too less, they may not well digested or well fed (ibid., p. 4).

The engineer of the human-soul: The teacher is compared to be an engineer who designs
and plans for a particular product. It is an industrial image in a sense. The factory is like
school; factory workshop----classroom; purchase of materials----enrolment of students;
draw a blueprint for a product---design a syllabus or a plan; inspection of the
product---examination of students; mass production---graduation of students. If this is
the case in the factory, no slight deviation of the product is allowed or it must be
degraded to secondary product or even reduced to sell. Can this industrial image apply to
school where students are different individuals and they have different needs which can’t
be ignored? The learners’ needs must be taken into consideration. So an agricultural
image comes out.

The hard-working gardener: This role image of teachers seems to be better compared
because the gardener has to water, trim, and cut in terms of different plants. For example
a particular plant likes more water while others don’t. Some need trimming while others
don’t. The differences have been considered. But students are not plants. They have their
own thinking and their own emotion which, in turn, may affect their growth (learning)
(ibid, p.4).

The above images of teachers in the new innovation of education in China are discussed
more than used to be. The traditional teachers’ roles as instructors and
knowledge-transmitters are challenged in this new situation though they are still held
high. In reality learning by the teacher’s instruction is still the preferred way for students.
Probably this is due to the deep-rooted Chinese educational philosophy and the long
tradition of the teacher-centred approach in the Chinese classroom. This assumption may
further be supported by the research findings by Liu (2002), who investigated the

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learning model preferences of student teachers. The findings showed that student
teachers don’t like to study English by themselves indicating that the teacher-centred
approach is more preferable. This also reveals that Chinese learners, under the influence
of the traditional teacher-centred approach, have not developed self-directing,
autonomous learning. This corroborates the general belief that Chinese learners are
passive and teacher-dependent, having little autonomy and not receiving much training
in learning how to learn. They like to be told what to do and how to do it. The conclusion
Liu has drawn from the research is that teacher learners have authority-oriented learning
styles and view teaching as a matter of transmitting knowledge rather than as a process of
developing learners’ skills and helping them gain learning autonomy. Those views of
teacher learners, I may predict, may influence their own teaching in the classroom. The
teacher’s role as knowledge-transmitter or knowledge-instructor is still in a dominated
position even if the new roles of teachers are expected by the new curriculum which
requires teachers to be changing their roles and adapting their identity to the new
situation. They should be a planner, organizer and provider of the
lesson/course/knowledge before the class; they should be the instructor, monitor,
supervisor and participant in the class and they should also be the evaluator after the
class (Curriculum, 2001). Students will be growing in the course of teachers’
professional development and teachers are improved in the course of students’ growth.

From the above images of teachers’ roles understood in China’s teaching and learning
context, I can see that the role of teacher is given more meaning, changing from mainly a
provider of knowledge to multi-roles of being a teacher in the reformed curriculum.
There will be more expectation of teachers. The new curriculum in China puts forth new
requirements for teachers (see chapter 2 on curriculum). One of the requirements is
teaching cultural awareness in English teaching as one of the objects in English course.
Hargreaves (1989: 54) strongly believes that change in the curriculum is not effected
without some concomitant change in the teachers, because it is the teacher who is

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responsible for delivering the curriculum at the classroom level. What the teacher thinks,
what the teacher believes, what the teacher assumes---all these things have powerful
implications for the change process, for the ways in which curriculum policy is translated
into curriculum practice (Richardson & Placier 2001). Carless (1998) also points out the
need for teachers to have a thorough understanding of the principles and practices of
proposed changes in order to achieve successful implementation. He emphasizes that
teachers need to understand and value the theoretical underpinnings of the innovation.
Next I will move to the views of western scholars on teacher’s role issue.

The role of teachers as understood by Western scholars

The literature suggests that language teachers need to be equipped with complex skills in
order to competently carry out multiple educational, psychosocial, technical roles. The
main roles of language teachers on educational aspect are providers of accurate language
models, materials developers, evaluators, communicators, and analyzers (Richards, 1990;
Stanley, 2004). On the psychosocial front the language teacher is required to be caterer,
motivator, coach guide, counsellor, friend, organizer and controller of behaviour, advisor,
as well as supporter of students’ work (Richards, 1990; Sheerin, 1997; Voller, 1997;
Lieberman, 2003). From a technical point of view the language teacher is expected to be
resource, resource manager, consultant, facilitator, monitor, coordinator, among other
things (Hammond & Collins, 1991; Lixl-Purcell, 1996; Sturbridge,1997; Voller,1997;
Roberts, 1998). Linked to the intercultural dimension, teachers are asked to be mediators,
interpreters, cultural workers (Byram, 2002; Guilherme, 2002), dialectologist and value
clarifier (Altman, 1981); anthropologist and ethnographer, intercultural educator (Kane,
1991). Sercu (2005) has coined and makes a consistent use of a new composite term
‘foreign language and intercultural competence teachers’. The objective of language
learning is no longer defined in terms of the acquisition of language competence, then
communicative competence. Teachers are now required to teach intercultural
communicative competence (p.2). Byram and Risager (1999) think that the role of

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teachers should be the language teachers as teachers of culture.

The importance of this new teacher’s identity is further stressed from the empirical
literature on teacher roles in teaching culture. Byram (1991) reported that trips abroad for
10-12 years olds more often than not resulted in negative stereotyping, after only one
encounter with members of the host culture, when the students were left to themselves
and when they lacked previous knowledge to use in interpreting intercultural encounters.
Without the teacher’s active involvement, students become more rather less ethnocentric
in their attitudes toward the target culture. Robinson (1981) concurs with this view when
she suggests that mere exposure to a foreign language will not automatically promote
favourable attitudes toward the culture, nor will positive attitudes toward a culture
necessarily facilitate the acquisition of the language. She found that the goals, attitudes,
and priorities of the foreign language teacher are as important consideration.

The above reviews of teachers’ roles from perspectives of Chinese and Western scholars
show that they have some similarities in terms of pedagogical aspects. The commonly
accepted roles of teachers’ are knowledge-provider, supporter, controller and organizer
etc. Further to identity transformations, incorporating the cultural dimension as an
integral part of foreign language teaching raises the question of the multitude of demands
put on the teachers’ competences and performance. Chinese scholars, though they realize
the importance of culture teaching in the language education, haven’t clearly identified
the new roles as Western scholars have. For example, intercultural educator (Kane, 1991),
mediators, interpreters, cultural workers (Byram, 2002; Guilherme, 2002), language
teachers as teachers of culture (Byram and Risager, 1999) are clearly identified by these
scholars. To some point it implies that the cultural teaching in language education in
China is still treated like a second cousin (Lange & Paige, 2003) Therefore it opens up
many issues to do, among others, with the status of language teachers in society, their
political and cultural consciousness, and most of all - teacher education and training.

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In the next section I will focus on teachers’ thinking on cultural teaching since I have
analyzed the cultural contents, cultural teaching approaches in general and techniques in
particular in the previous sections. I have also discussed the role of teachers related to the
culture teaching. Now I want to know whether the ‘implementers’ of the cultural content
and culture teaching method are interesting in teaching culture and what teachers think
about the cultural teaching; whether their perception of language and culture teaching
influence their teaching practice etc., all of which will be discussed in the next section as
part of the context for my own empirical study in later chapters.

3.6 Teachers’ beliefs

Introduction

In 1999, the Ministry of Education in China released an Action Plan for Rejuvenating
Education in the 21st Century. This is an overall, guiding and operational plan for
national educational development in China. Its implementation requires a new round of
reforms in the English curriculum for primary and secondary schools. The
implementation of these reforms commenced in 2001. A key component of this
programme of educational improvement concerns the professional development for
practicing teachers. This will impact on more than 550,000 secondary teachers of
English, and millions of students learning English at the secondary level in China (Liu &
Gong, 2000). Upgrading the subject and pedagogical knowledge of this enormous
number of teachers will be a daunting challenge for Education Colleges and Teacher
Colleges across the country.

One of the goals in the renewed English curriculum for secondary education is to
develop students’ cultural awareness and communicative competence. This new
emphasis on the cultural dimension in language teaching is a demanding challenge for

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school teachers. In the context of the newly emphasized aim of communicative
competence, teachers are expected to use a task-based approach in language teaching,
which it is completely different from the more familiar grammar-translation method.
Textbooks are being produced which follow this communicative ethos. The new
curriculum also sets attainment targets which, alongside the new teaching approach and
the new textbook philosophy, mean that teachers are expected to cope with great change
in several areas. They are probably far from understanding the concepts and face many
difficulties. They may feel at a loss as how to be involved in terms of the attempt to
comply with these changes ushered by the Action Plan and how to adapt their classroom
practice. In this new situation of education reform, can classroom practice techniques for
achieving culture and communication goals change from the traditional perspective on
teaching characterized by a transmission orientation to ambitious new goals set by these
reforms? Can teachers’ past beliefs about teaching be modified to take account of the
new priorities? Apart from this, I wonder how much teachers even understand the
concept of culture and its significant role in language teaching; and whether they have a
common or shared framework for deciding what is an appropriate concept of culture for
their specific teaching context since there is no discussion of what concept of culture and
culture content should underpin the new curriculum.

This unsatisfactory situation invites teacher trainers as well as school teachers to reflect
on the existing training model. It is clear that it had become inadequate for contemporary
notions of good language education, and the current pedagogical content required by
Chinese EFL school teachers leaves them unprepared to cope with change. In addition, a
basic disciplinary knowledge of second language acquisition research, psycholinguistics,
bilingualism, sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, and knowledge of learners and context
appear necessary for all language teachers. To teach students to achieve communicative
competence in English and to raise students’ cultural awareness, teachers themselves will
need to be equipped with the relevant competence and cultural knowledge. Given that

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now the new requirements set by the national curriculum mandate such expectations
Education College and Teacher College must make teacher training reform a priority.

The core part of my empirical study is to investigate Chinese teachers’ opinions and
beliefs about the place of English cultural teaching in EFL context; their beliefs about
goals of language and culture teaching and what culture content they think should be
taught. In addition, the study examines related practices in the classroom at the
secondary level context, as reported by teachers in the survey which will be conducted.
Research on teachers’ beliefs has shown a strong correlation between beliefs and
teaching practice. Beliefs directly affect teaching practice and teaching practice reflects
teachers’ beliefs (Calderhead, 1996; Nespor, 1987; Pajares, 1992). It is clear from the
research literature that these beliefs determine which content teachers select and how
they approach the micro level of teaching in the classroom. In the present study, I want to
build on these findings to see what schoolteachers’ beliefs are in Chinese EFL teaching
and thereby to document instructional practice in the classroom in the new situation that
is emerging under current education reforms. The purpose of this part of the literature
review is to profile the beliefs of language teachers in teaching EFL context. The review
of the literature in this section will focus on the following areas:
Teachers’ beliefs about subject matter
Teachers’ beliefs about the goals of language education
Teachers’ beliefs about culture and language
Teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning
In order to appreciate the place and role of teacher beliefs in the teaching of English, it
will be necessary to consider the nature of beliefs themselves, their definition and
relation to other constructs such as that of knowledge. This review will begin therefore
by defining the concept of beliefs and building a theoretical framework which will be
used throughout the study. Following the review of the literature on beliefs, will be a
discussion concerning the relationship between beliefs and change.

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3.6.1 Definition of belief
In order to understand the role of teachers’ beliefs in innovation in education, it is
important to define the concept itself. Defining beliefs is not easy. Pajares refers to
beliefs as a ‘messy construct’, which ‘travels under the alias’ of ‘attitudes, values,
judgments, axioms, opinions, ideology, perceptions, conceptions, conceptual systems,
preconceptions, dispositions, implicit theories, personal theories, internal mental
processes, action strategies, rules of practice, practical principles, perspectives,
repertories of understanding, and social strategy, to name but a few that can be found in
the literature’ ( Pajares, 1992: 309 cited in Sercu 2007). It is clear from the above that
beliefs are not only considered to have an affective, attitudinal component, but also to
impact on perceptions, and inner world of teachers, and their thought processes.
Moreover beliefs link to personal theories and have knowledge components. Pajares
explains that confusion with the concept centres on the distinction between knowledge
and belief. However, as many researchers have found, it is not so much that knowledge
differs from beliefs, but that beliefs themselves constitute a form of knowledge.

In his attempts to characterize beliefs, Nespor (1987) provides some distinctions between
the two. He singles out four features of the construct previously identified by Abelson
(1979) and considers them in relation to teachers. Existential presumptions or personal
truths are generally unaffected by persuasion and are perceived by the teacher as being
beyond his/her control or influence. These types of beliefs would include a teacher’s
beliefs about students’ innate abilities or characteristics. Alternatively is a feature of
beliefs that would include situations such as when teachers attempt to establish an
instructional format of which they have no direct experience but which they might
consider ideal.

Nespor theorizes that it is in this respect that beliefs ‘serve as a means of defining goals

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and tasks, whereas knowledge systems come into play where goals and the paths to their
attainment are well defined’. (p.310) Belief systems can be said to rely much more
heavily on affective and evaluative components than knowledge systems. For this reason,
knowledge of a domain can be distinguished from feelings about a domain such as a
subject area taught by a teacher. Teachers’ values and feelings often affect what and how
they teach and may conflict with their knowledge:

Belief systems are composed mainly of episodically stored material which is derived
from personal experience, episodes or events which continue to influence the
comprehension of events at a later time. Whereas beliefs reside in episodic memory,
knowledge is semantically stored (p.310).

A further distinction between beliefs and knowledge, notes Nespor, is that, while
knowledge often changes, beliefs are ‘static’. Knowledge can be evaluated or judged.
This is not the case with beliefs as there is usually a lack of consensus about how they are
to be evaluated. Furthermore, there do not appear to be any clear rules for determining
the relevance of beliefs to real world events.

While there are no doubt other distinctions that could be made between the two
constructs, a better understanding may be gained by exploring the relationship between
the two and by considering beliefs as a form of knowledge. This form of knowledge
could be referred to as personal knowledge. Kagan (1992) refers to belief as a
‘particularly provocative form of personal knowledge’ and argues that most of a
teacher’s professional knowledge can be regarded more accurately as beliefs. In this
view beliefs are often considered as being a type of knowledge and knowledge as a
component of beliefs.

According to Kagan, this knowledge grows richer and more coherent as a teacher's

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experience in classrooms grows and thus forms a highly personalized pedagogy or belief
system that actually constrains the teacher’s perception, judgment, and behaviour. In
terms of beliefs as being personal knowledge, Kagan explains: ‘A teacher’s knowledge
of his or her profession is situated in three important ways: in context (it is related to
specific groups of students), in content (it is related to particular academic material to be
taught), and in person (it is embedded within the teacher’s unique belief system)’ (1992:
74).

Like Clark (1986) who equates 'implicit theories' with beliefs, Nespor (1987: 324)
explains how beliefs become personal pedagogies or theories to guide teachers' practices:

teachers’ beliefs play a major role in defining teaching tasks and organizing the
knowledge and information relevant to those tasks. But why should this be so? Why
wouldn’t research-based knowledge or academic theory serve this purpose just as
well? The answer suggested here is that the contexts and environments within which
teachers work, and many of the problems they encounter, are ill-defined and deeply
entangled, and that beliefs are peculiarly suited for making sense of such contexts.

Based on these common elements described in this review of the nature of beliefs, I can
derive a definition of beliefs applicable to teachers, which will be used in this study.
Teachers’ beliefs represent a complex system of personal and professional knowledge
that serves as implicit theories and cognitive maps for experiencing and responding to
reality. Beliefs rely on cognitive and affective components and are often tacitly held.

3.6.2 General beliefs and context-specific beliefs

With understanding of the nature of beliefs, researchers usually make a distinction
between teachers’ general beliefs and context-specific beliefs. The former refers to the
concepts of teaching and learning, concepts of subject matter and concepts of the

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teaching context; while the latter concerns pedagogical content knowledge or
professional knowledge gradually built through the accumulation of teaching experience.
I will analyze these two general bodies of literature below.

General beliefs of teaching and learning

This body of literature on teachers’ thinking usually centres on general conceptions of
teaching and learning, subject matter and teaching context. Teachers’ general
conceptions regarding teaching have been investigated extensively (see for example,
Shavelson & Stern, 1982; Clark & Peterson, 1986; Nespor, 1987; Pajares, 1992; Fang,
1996).

(1) Concepts of teaching and learning

Conceptions of teaching and learning held by science teachers investigated by Prosser
and Trigwell (1999) and Prosser et al (1994) have been identified as (1) the transmission
of the concepts of the syllabus; (2) the transmission of teacher’s knowledge; (3) helping
students acquire the concepts of the syllabus; (4) helping students acquire the teacher’s
knowledge; (5) helping students develop conceptions, and (6) helping students change
conceptions).

In 1999, An Shuhua, a Chinese-American, and her colleagues were invited by the

Ministry of Education in China to present mathematics teaching methods to a group of
Chinese educators and researchers. This provided the opportunity for investigating
Chinese teachers’ views in the teaching and learning of mathematics. Their study
combined qualitative and quantitative research methods in the form of interview,
observation of classroom teaching and survey of teachers and educations at different
levels. They found that Chinese teachers’ beliefs concerning mathematic education have
a strong impact on their teaching practice. The majority of Chinese teachers in their
study believed that basic knowledge of mathematics is critical for students to develop

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thinking ability, to help students to solve real world problems, and to correct their errors
(beliefs of learning from errors and errors caused by the lack of prerequisite
knowledge---blind point of knowledge). As for classroom instruction, An Shuhua and
her colleagues found that Chinese teachers instil knowledge into students and require
students to do many exercises to achieve entrance examination success. In addition, the
researchers found that teachers devote much attention and time to preparing instruction
in order to understand the subject and its requirements fully. Teaching plans nearly for all
teachers include, i) content,. ii) the objectives, iii) materials, iv) procedure (a) review of
previous lesson, (b) new lesson, (c) reinforce practice, (d) summary, (e) homework.

From such research on general conceptions, we can see the range of conceptions of
teaching and learning and note some distinctive differences. In Prosser and Trigwell’s
findings, teachers devote considerable attention on ‘concepts’ of transmission to the
students, of acquisition by the students and of change in the students. Students are placed
in the centre of learning. On the other hand, Chinese teachers focus on knowledge
instruction and rely on exercises to consolidate what students learn. The teaching is more
teacher-centred, often ignores students’ role and neglects the development of individual
personality. Moreover such teaching fails to cultivate creative ability and disconnects
learning with students’ real life overlooking the potential of a more interactive
relationship between teachers and students.

This tradition of teaching and learning which can be traced to teachers’ teaching plans
though at different levels, exposes a similar formula, indicating lack of individual
creativity possibly not developed in the teachers’ previous education. These general
beliefs of teaching and learning in relation to science teachers encourage me to review
research literature on beliefs of foreign language teaching and learning.

Wang (2002) investigates English teachers at tertiary level in China to uncover the extent

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to which English teachers have employed the key innovative practices associated with
communicative language teaching. The findings identify which teachers adopted a more
communicative-oriented teaching style. However, the results also indicate that traditional
classroom features, such as teaching focused on the textbook and transmitting
knowledge or explaining new words in vocabulary lists, are still very common. The
findings also show that it might not be the training respondents received but the type of
students they teach that determined the extent to which they applied innovative practices
in their teaching.

In a similar empirical study in an Asian context, Li (1999) investigated the

communicative language teaching of English in Korean middle school classrooms. The
purpose of the survey research was to explore Korean teachers’ beliefs about the main
objectives of English teaching and their practices in classroom. The result shows that
Korean EFL teachers’ beliefs about the language teaching and learning are (1)
developing communicative classroom environments that blend the language skills of
listening, speaking, reading, and writing, (2) providing appropriate, meaningful and
comprehensive input to learners, (3) using motivational activities such as games and
songs, (4) using audio-visual materials in language classroom, (5) using learner-centred
activities, and (6) teaching grammar in a communicative way. Despite the teachers’
beliefs, however, they report that their teaching practices are still largely teacher-centred,
teacher-dominated and drill-driven rather than learner-centred. From above findings I
can see Korean teachers’ beliefs and practice appeared to be contradicted with the
literature reviewed earlier saying that beliefs determine practice. Teachers reported using
a teacher-dominated-drills-driven approach in the classroom but they believe that they
should use learner-centred activities through the communicative method. My argument is
that teachers’ beliefs were not deeply held and their classroom practice was still guided
by their previous deeply-rooted concepts, which was hard to change.

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These beliefs on language teaching and learning were shared by the Chinese teachers in
EFL investigated in this study as we shall see in Chapter Five.

(2) Concepts of subject matter

Many studies investigating teachers’ conceptions of subject matter have focused on
teachers of mathematics and physics. Several studies have found that there does not
appear to be a link between teachers’ conception of the nature of the science and their
teaching behaviour (Bell, Lederman & Adb-El-Khalick, 2000; Brickhouse & Bodner,
1992; Hodson, 1993). Teachers who hold clear and consistent beliefs about the nature
of science don’t appear to plan activities consistent with those views. Instead, they are
more concerned with issues of classroom management and course content coverage
(Hodson, 1993).

There is however some important evidence to suggest that teacher perspectives on their
subject matter influence their teaching practices. Pajares (1992) conducted a review of
the research literature and found that teachers’ beliefs strongly correlate with their
behaviour, particularly with respect to choices and decisions they make about
instructional practice. For language teachers, subject matter is mainly concerned with a
knowledge of English as a linguistic system at the sentence level and largely ignores
knowledge of language use at the level of pragmatics and discourse (Brown, 2000).
There is no explicit attention to culture knowledge as a learning goal which constitutes a
key component of contemporary approaches to cultural understanding and
communicative competence. Instead, such knowledge is assumed to be obtainable
through reading English literature and attending lectures on the political systems,
economic structures, history and geography of the UK and the US (Paige, 2003). It is
difficult to see how this body of knowledge can contribute to effective language use
(Stern, 2000).

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The respondents in this study conceive the subject English as one of the three important
subjects next to mathematics and Chinese. They invest more time in developing
linguistic competence in listening, speaking, reading and writing. The detailed
discussion will be presented in Chapter 5.

(3) Teaching context

Teachers’ perceptions of the teaching context cover many aspects, for example, class size,
students’ motivation and ability, control over teaching methods, teaching content, their
perceptions of self-efficacy, demands of the teaching workload, and standard of school
facilities etc. Prosser and Trigwell (1999) identified several teaching context variables
that were related to approaches to teaching. They carried out a survey on Australian
college physics and chemistry teachers and found that ‘a conceptual
change/student-centred approach to teaching is associated with perceptions that
workload is not too high, the class sizes are not too large, that the teacher has some
control over what and how he/she teaches and that the variation in student characteristics
is not too large’ (Prosser & Trigwell, 1999: 156). They also report that ‘an information
transmission/teacher-focused approach to teaching is associated with the perceptions that
the teacher has little control over how and what he/she teaches and that there is little
commitment to student learning in the department’ (ibid).

In the EFL teaching context in China, especially at secondary level, class sizes are very
large. There are 65-70 students in each class on average, which indicates that
student-centred approaches are severely limited and task-based teaching which is
advocated inevitably turns out to be teacher-centred transmission of knowledge provided
in the textbook. The perceptions of teaching are very direct and practical articulated in
terms like ‘content to be covered’ for ‘desirable examination results’ (Liu, 2001). The
commitment to students’ learning can’t be satisfactorily made in such big classes and the
high teaching efficiency is very hard to achieve.

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As for a choice of teaching approach, the research shows that this depends on both the
teacher’s previous experience and his/her perceptions of the compatibility between the
approach and teaching situation (teacher’s control of content, teaching methods, class
size etc. (Trigwell and Prosser, 1997). For example, these researchers argue that a teacher
will adopt a conceptual change/ student-centred approach only if the teacher has
sufficient prior experience of such an approach and perceives it to be effective for the
intended teaching situation. If Chinese teachers’ prior experiences of teaching are of the
grammar-translation approach, they may feel their experience of task-based approach is
not sufficient and be at loss how to apply the task-based approach in the classroom.

Teachers are not very good at perceiving students’ interests and motivation in learning
(Cater and Doyle, 1995) although they perceive that students are an important contextual
variable. Teachers often use their judgment on how students respond to their
instructional practices and their teaching content. For many language teachers, an
important reason for bringing culture into classroom has been the hope that the study of
culture will increase student motivation in language learning (Byram and Morgan, 1994).

In the present study, it has been found that teachers believe that cultural anecdotes,
cultural facts related to daily life and cultural background knowledge are taught because
they can interest students’ learning of English. This is one of the purposes of teaching
culture in English language classes.

Context-specific conceptions
Research into teacher’s thinking has shown that teachers also have context-specific
conceptions which can gradually develop in the course of teaching (Counts, 1999;
Grossman, 1988; 1995; van Driel et al 1997). Context-specific conceptions are
experience-based and help teachers relate their past experience to current problems, they

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also help to define problems, and test out possible solutions to problems (Calderhead,
1996). As a teacher’s experience in classroom grows, his or her professional knowledge
grows richer and more coherent, forming a highly personalized pedagogy---a belief
system that constrains the teacher’s perception, judgment, and behaviour. This
knowledge base for teaching has long been recognized by teacher educators and has
received much emphasis recently (Bullough, 2001). Shulman (1986) made a compelling
case for a solid knowledge base as a precondition for effective teaching. The knowledge
base for teaching, as Shulman has conceived it, is an amalgam of knowledge, skills, and
dispositions that underlie the capacity to teach effectively. The knowledge base content is
classified by Shulman into seven categories: subject matter knowledge, general
pedagogical knowledge, curricular knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, the
remaining three categories of knowledge concern learners and their characteristics,
educational contexts, and educational purposes. Over the years, Shulman’s conceptual
framework has stimulated much research efforts to identify a general knowledge base for
teaching, to define the nature of relevant knowledge, and to design curriculum that can
help pre- and in-service teachers develop an adequate knowledge base (e.g., Calderhead,
1991; Fradd & Lee, 1998; Freeman, 2002; Grossman, 1990; Grossman & Richert, 1988;
Richards, 1998).

The framework has been largely supported by empirical research across diverse subjects.
Nonetheless, a number of researchers have found it necessary to modify the framework
to remove overlapping among the categories of knowledge. Grossman and Richert
(1988), for example, revised the framework to yield a four-part knowledge base: (a)
subject matter knowledge; (b) general pedagogical knowledge and knowledge of
educational theories and philosophy in Shulman’s framework; (c) pedagogical content
knowledge, which subsumes Shulman’s category of curricular knowledge; and (d)
knowledge of learners and context. A similar framework is conceptualized by Elbaz
(1983) as practical knowledge. She identified the content of practical knowledge as

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‘knowledge of self, the context of teaching, subject matter, curriculum development and
instruction’ (p. 45).

In order to use this knowledge base that underlies teaching, a teacher must use his or her
personal value judgments (Wilson, Shulman, & Richert 1987). It is generally
acknowledged that such judgments depend on three factors: the particular class of
students a teacher faces; the kind of academic material to be taught and the teacher’s
prior experiences and related beliefs. Thus it can be said that a teacher’s knowledge of
his/her profession is situated in three important ways: in context (related to specific
groups of students), in content (related to particular academic material to be taught), and
in person (embedded within the teacher’s unique belief system). Research in language
classroom shows those teachers’ feelings, values, needs and beliefs, combined with
experience and theoretical knowledge; usually guide their language instructional practice.
Teacher perceptions regarding how language is learnt also play crucial role in that they
determine a teacher’s willingness to experiment with new approaches (Li, 1998).

3.6.3 The connection between beliefs and behaviours

As pointed out in the introduction to this section, many researchers tend to show that the
individuals’ beliefs may influence their behaviours (Abelson, 1979; Clark & Peterson,
1986; 1988; Nespor, 1987; Tabachnick & Zeichner, 1986). By exploring the relationship
between the beliefs and behaviours, these researchers have examined the mental
constructs underlying behaviour before seeking to explain behaviour. Although the
connection between teacher belief and teacher behaviour may seem self-evident, on
some occasions beliefs can’t be inferred directly from teacher behaviour, because
teachers can follow similar practices for very different reasons. Moreover, teachers are
unaware of their own beliefs and what they know or believe about their profession is
often tacit. Beliefs can orchestrate the recall of memories, retrieving material selectively
so as to confirm prior preconceptions (Nisbett & Ross, 1980).

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Some research on the association between language teachers’ beliefs and instructional
practice has been conducted. In Europe, Byram et al (1991) found that the
methodological approach adopted by teachers appears to have a causal relationship with
a teacher’s beliefs. Based on extensive classroom observations and interviews with
teachers and students, the respondents to their study indicated that teaching culture was a
pedagogic device that makes lessons more interesting, contextualized language teaching,
and filled in ‘lessons where language-learning ability is believed to be limited’ (p.111).
This set of beliefs was reflected in the way culture was found in language teaching
through teachers’ use of cultural facts, cultural artefacts and cultural anecdotes. When
students were interviewed, they said that the teacher ‘supplements the textbook….but
also improves on the textbook’ and ‘can provide experience which the textbook cannot’
(p.113). Cook (1996) investigated first year university students’ cultural understanding.
In her findings she concluded that students valued teachers who possessed French
language and culture expertise. When these culture teachers were allocated to them,
students considered their teachers to be an important source of culture information.

The key instructional activities are the vehicles that translate teachers belief into
classroom instruction, thus I can say that teachers’ beliefs are mirrored in their teaching
practice. In this study the activities used by teachers /trainers are discussed in Chapter 5,
section 5.5 which I will see how teachers’ belief influence their teaching. Teachers’
beliefs on culture teaching are decisive variables in the practice.

3.6.4 Teachers’ beliefs regarding the goals of language education

In 1981 Robinson conducted a large-scale investigation of perceptions held by teachers,
students and parents concerning the sociocultural goals of foreign language study at the
primary level. The notable findings regarding foreign language study in this research
were first and foremost that the principal aims of foreign language teaching were for

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‘understanding people’, ‘general enjoyment’ and ‘language enrichment’ (Robinson, 1981:
22) These reasons, the researcher pointed out, reflect the ‘collective justification for
including foreign language study in the school curriculum at primary, secondary and
tertiary levels’ (p.33). Although set in Australia over twenty year ago, these findings are
applicable to the situation in China today. The new Chinese curriculum (2001) states in
the introduction that ‘….learning a foreign language will broaden students’ horizon,
cultivate students sensitivity towards other people and cultures of English-speaking
countries in order to develop students’ ability of evaluation and judgement of our own
culture based on better understanding of foreign cultures …’. This assertion echoes
Robinson’s statement that ‘foreign language study will give one key to another culture,
will lead to an awareness, understanding and sensitivity towards other people and their
way of life’ (p.24).

Similar investigations were carried out by Byram and his colleagues between 1985 and
1988 in UK. The goal of their project was to investigate ‘the effect of language teaching
on young people’s perception of other culture’ (Byram et al., 1991, p. 13). The major
findings regarding teachers were, first, that teachers had similar objectives for and beliefs
about the value of foreign language. In particular, they felt that culture promoted gains in
personal development in the form of learning about others as well as promoted openness
and tolerance. Second, there was great variation in style or approaches to teaching about
foreign culture and teachers frequently used culture as a pedagogic device for capturing
student interest, or for contextualizing language teaching. Third, teachers in this study
generally had limited experience with the target culture. Finally, instruction was
dominated by the textbooks, which were used extensively and determines the topics as
well as the sequence of instruction (cited by Paige, et al 2003: 193). The difference
between Robinson’s teachers and the teachers interviewed by Byram and his colleagues
is that teachers’ perception of goals of language learning in Australia were more general
while UK teachers, apart from sharing the general objectives of language teaching with

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their Australian counterparts, also revealed an emerging awareness of culture in the
curriculum, such as teaching approaches to culture teaching, the domination of textbook
in instruction etc. Through their extensive classroom observations, Byram and his
colleagues draw a conclusion that culture remains didactic and oriented toward the
transmission of information (ibid, 118). It could be argued that this transmission of
information was guided by teachers’ mental constructs of experience often condensed
into schemata or concepts that guided their behaviour. If so, teachers’ perception of
cultural aspects of language teaching was that they should impart this cultural
information, believing that students’ competence in skills, attitudes and awareness would
be promoted and developed.

In my data analysis chapter, teachers’ concepts on language teaching objectives are

analyzed and I will see what they think about language teaching objectives and see if
there any different opinions on this issue. Now back to my discussion and I will continue
to discuss a research project done by Chinese scholars on this issue.

There is some research showing that what students want and what teachers provide do
not match. For example, in 1998, Liu and Gao’s China nation-wide study on student
attitudes toward foreign language at tertiary level showed that 63% of students thought
that there should be more emphasis on culture comparison and contrast and expressed
dissatisfaction with the approach of ‘culture information book knowledge feeding’,
which they were required to memorize and on which exams were set. Although their
survey did not probe for deeper representation of culture concepts in teachers and
students’ minds, they hint at the lack of understanding nature of culture teaching in the
language education.

Relatively speaking, apart from this research, little has been studied in Chinese teacher’s
beliefs in ESL/EFL by Chinese scholars and even less among teachers of English at

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school level. However, I found some research on mathematics teachers’ beliefs and their
impact on the practice in China. In her report (2002), referred to earlier, An Shuhua
investigated how Chinese teachers viewed the general goals of education, especially
goals of mathematics education; how Chinese teachers prepared lessons, how they taught
in classroom etc. The results indicated that teachers’ beliefs about mathematics and its
teaching played a significant role in shaping the teachers’ modes of instruction, and
cultural and social context affected teachers’ belief system. In Shuhua’s findings, the
majority of Chinese teachers believed that the goal of education in China is to cultivate
people and increase the quality of the whole nation. Specifically, the goal of education
was thought to foster students’ development in five areas: moral, academic, physical,
aesthetics, and work; while at the same time focusing on the expansion of the students’
creative ability. This is probably reflective of views of general education held by
language teachers to certain extent even though these research findings on the goals of
education are from Chinese mathematics teachers. This is because Confucius’
philosophy has played an important role in Chinese education. For example, moral
education is the or one of the foundations of Confucianism such that various codes of
moral life, rules of propriety, patterns of behaviour and guidelines for social and daily
life were produced and enhanced (Yao, 2000). Therefore the moral goal is placed above
general education goals in China.

3.6.5 Teachers’ beliefs regarding culture and language

A major area of foreign language research involved in the study of language has been the
study of the relationship of language and culture. Discovering teachers’ beliefs about
culture is a principal research goal.

In Europe, Byram and Risager (1999) explored teachers’ views about cultural
dimensions in language teaching and its effect on secondary school students’ perceptions
of other cultures. The researchers traced and analyzed definitions using a grid with two

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dimensions: thematic (such as a way of life/ objective structure/norms and values/art and
literature) and societal (such as international, national, group, individual) (Byram &
Risager 1999: 105). Their findings showed that teachers’ understandings of the concept
‘culture’ concentrated on national culture and little attention being paid to aspects culture
beyond those already found in textbooks. The definition provided by teachers appeared
to be lacking in the depth and complexity for language teaching. When students were
interviewed they were interested in interpretation of cultural dimensions in language
teaching. They also concluded that teachers were often frustrated in their attempts to
treat the cultural dimension seriously because of pressures to produce measurable results
and to focus on linguistic competence (ibid).

Knox’s Report on the Teaching of French civilization (1984) contained responses given
by French secondary and university teachers about how they came to teach civilization,
how and what they taught. In both settings, teachers’ understanding and beliefs about
French civilization primarily were: current events, history, literature and the fine arts,
cultural values and customs, and French-American contrasts. As for instructional
contents there were some slight differences. College teachers tended to emphasize small
c culture (daily life), while secondary school teachers focused more on the topics of
current events, history, and geography.

In Mexico, Ryan (1994) explored the relationship between foreign language teachers’
perceptions of culture and their instructional behaviour. Ryan categorized their culture
filters into six basic beliefs in accordance with Keesing‘s categories of meaning:
(1) culture is knowledge gained through reading; (2) culture is institutions which should
be analyzed; (3) culture is the daily way of life; (4) culture is transmitted from one
generation to another; (5) culture means having a critical attitude toward the world; (6)
culture is lived and experienced. During the observation, Ryan noticed how teachers
handled information about English-speaking cultures. Linguistic analysis and practice

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dominated instruction and culture aspects and linguistic practice were carefully
distinguished (Ryan, 1994: 230). She reported that insertion of information about the
target culture was done in several ways. In addition to the three ways reported in Byram
et al (1999) (culture anecdotes, facts and artefacts) Ryan identified another two forms:
cross-cultural comparisons between native culture and foreign culture; and ‘brief,
encapsulated cultural statements often seen as talking off the subject’ (p.231). On the
basis of these findings Ryan drew a conclusion that there is ‘some degree of relation
between teachers’ filters and corresponding teacher behaviour’ (p.231). For example, if a
teacher’s filter was ‘culture is the daily way of life’, he/she may instruct students in
cultural anecdotes based on her/his own personal experiences. Therefore Ryan found that
in general teachers are teaching culture as facts, rather than for cultural understanding
and intercultural competence, a finding which is important in shedding light on how
teachers are teaching about culture.

In another international setting, Lessard-Clouston (1996a) investigated Chinese teachers’

views of culture in their EFL learning and teaching in a survey about their interpretations
of culture teaching. The study confirmed that teachers, when asked about culture and
language, gave very broad definitions that included all aspects of daily life, and said they
taught culture both explicitly and implicitly in their classes (ibid).

So far I have reviewed some literature regarding teachers’ beliefs on culture teaching.
This body of literature was based on investigations conducted in different countries
where teachers’ concepts about culture teaching were different in a sense. The concept of
national culture should be taught by UK teachers, the civilization of current events,
history, literature and fine arts by French teachers, observable and non-observable
culture should be taught by American teachers and to teach culture as facts by Mexican
teachers. Therefore I am very interested to find out how school teachers in my region
understand the culture teaching. In this empirical study, I explored 400 school teachers’

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beliefs about the nature of culture and their classroom instruction. For some teachers it
was difficult to express their ideas and explain how they define culture. Some were
perplexed at first by the complexity of the abstraction and its elusive character. Their
definitions were rather broad, embracing many aspects of daily life. I will discuss my
findings in detail in a chapter 5.

3.6.6 Change of teachers’ beliefs

Many definitions of beliefs also attach a value dimension to the concept of beliefs (Borg,
2001). In Chinese the two words ‘beliefs and values’ are linked together
indicating that they are inseparable. Beliefs involve classifying life as we experience it
into certain categories. This is one of the most fundamental ways in which humans
understand the world and give meaning to their experiences (Brislin and Yoshiba, 1994).
We define what aspects of life are valuable or worthy and put price tags on many
components which make up our everyday lives by referring to our beliefs. Pajares (1992)
provides insight into how beliefs function and how this functioning actually contributes
to their resistance to change:

Beliefs provide personal meaning and assist in defining relevancy. They help individuals
to identify with one another and form groups and social systems. On a social and cultural
level, beliefs provide elements of structure, order, direction and shared values. From both
a personal and socio/cultural perspective, belief systems reduce dissonance and
confusion, even when dissonance is logically justified by the inconsistent beliefs one
holds. This is one reason why beliefs acquire emotional dimensions and resist change.
People grow comfortable with their beliefs, and these beliefs become their ‘self’ so that
individuals come to be identified and understood by the very nature of the beliefs, and
habits they own. (p. 317)

The significant role that beliefs play enables teachers to make value judgments relating

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to teaching and learning, act as filter and define what they consider to be important or
less important information to teach and which way to conduct teaching through their
belief system. The empirical studies have yielded quite consistent findings in this value
dimension. First, teacher’s beliefs appear to be relatively stable and resistant to change
(Brousseau, Book, & Byers, 1988; Herrmann & Duffy, 1989). Values embedded in
beliefs are very loyal to the personal inner world, and deeply-rooted beliefs are
especially hard to change. Second, teachers’ beliefs tend to be associated with a
congruent style of teaching that is often evident across different classes and grade levels
(Evertson & Weade, 1989; Martin, 1989). Beliefs, as Pajares assets, ‘tend to self-
perpetuate, preserving even against contradictions caused by reason, time, schooling, or
experience’ (Pajares, 1992). He continues to say that the earlier a belief is incorporated
into the belief structure, the more difficult it is to alter; newly acquired beliefs are most
vulnerable to change; if we apply this insight to beliefs about teaching, it seems that the
more important a particular aspect is in the teacher’s mind, the more difficult it will be to
change. These well-established beliefs affect the way in which teachers perceive their
own teaching situation. In this way, beliefs seem to be equipped with a built-in security
system which frames and filters new information in order to minimize the impact of any
challenge to their own survival (Sercu, 2007).

Nespor (1987) argues that instructional change is not a matter of abandoning beliefs, but
of gradually replacing them with more relevant beliefs. Dwyer et al. (1992) concur with
Nespor when they argue that implementing change in education must include changing
teachers’ practices and beliefs by gradually replacing them with more relevant beliefs
shaped by experiences in an altered context. They argue that it is this altered context that
may make the difference in terms of impacting on the beliefs. They found that ‘teachers'
beliefs may be best modified while they are in the thick of change, taking risks and
facing uncertainty’ (Dwyer et al., 1991: 52). Confronted with change, teachers are forced
to re-evaluate their beliefs about learning and instruction and only by changing these

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beliefs can instructional change take place. Though beliefs may be hard to change, they
do change over time with growing expertise and may even change through reflective
teaching practice (Sercu, 2007).

(1) Beliefs change during teaching experience

Research on teachers’ thinking has been concerned with the development of teaching
expertise (Berliner, 1987; Berliner, 1988; Carter & Doyle, 1987; Dunkin & Precians,
1992; Kwo, 1994). Teaching experience is an important factor in the development of
context-specific conceptions because teachers with accumulated experience know what
decision to make without having engaged in conscious thought (Berliner, 1987) while
teachers with little experience have to make decisions based on their general conceptions.
Going through this process leads to the context-specific conceptions. Experienced
teachers’ thought processes are highly automated.

How teacher’s teaching expertise can be developed, is shown by Kwo (1994) who
describes five stages of skill development in teaching as follows:
Stage 1: Novice. At this stage, a teacher is labelling and learning each element of a
classroom task in the process of acquiring a set of context-free rules. Classroom-teaching
performance is rational and relatively inflexible, and requires purposeful concentration.
Stage 2: Advanced beginner. Many second-and third-year teachers reach this stage,
where episodic knowledge is acquired and similarities across contexts are recognized.
The teacher develops strategic knowledge and an understanding of when to ignore or
break rules. Prior classroom experiences and the contexts of problems begin to guide the
teacher’s behaviour.
Stage 3: Competent. The teacher is now able to make conscious choices about actions,
set priorities, and make plans. From prior experience, the teacher knows what is and is
not important. In addition, the teacher is able to manage the areas of timing and targeting
errors. However, performance is not yet fluid or flexible.

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Stage 4: Proficient. Fifth-year teachers may reach this stage, when intuition and
know-how begin to guide performance and a holistic recognition of similarities among
contexts is acquired. The teacher can now pick up information from the classroom
without conscious effort, and can predict events with some precision.
Stage 5: Expert. Not all teachers reach this stage, which is characterized by an intuitive
grasp of situations and a non-analytic, non-deliberate sense of appropriate behaviour.
Teaching performance is now fluid and seemingly effortless, as the teacher no longer
consciously chooses the focus of attention. At this stage, standardized, automated
routines are operated to handle instruction and management (cited in Sercu, 2007).

It is clear that teachers’ beliefs can indeed change with growing of teaching experience.
As teacher’s teaching experience accumulates, teachers’ context-specific conceptions
become more stable and fixed and thus teachers are less open-minded towards
innovation or change (Beijaard, 1996).

(2) Beliefs change over reflective thinking approach

In recent years, the increasing emphasis in teacher professional development has been on
a critically reflective approach. Gaye and Gaye (1999) see reflection as thinking about
what you do; and Farrell (2001) sees it as thinking critically about what you do, and
involves recall, consideration, and evaluation of experiences as a means of improving
future ones. Elder and Paul (1994), and Halpern (1996) also point out that reflective
teaching which involves teachers’ willingness to reflect on themselves critically, to
question their own convictions, to challenge their own assumptions, to take risks in
learning, to try out new strategies and ideas, to seek alternatives, to take control of
learning, to use higher order thinking skills and reflect upon their own learning processes.
Thus it can be seen that a common feature of the reflective process is the questioning of
‘self’, that is, one’s belief, values, assumptions, context, and goals, in relation to such
actions, events, or decisions, as outlined by Cruickshank (1987) and Zeichner and Liston

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(1996).

Zeichner and Liston (1996) put this in practical terms when they point out that reflective
teaching involves teachers in examining, framing and attempting to solve dilemmas of
classroom and schools, and asking questions about assumptions and values they bring to
teaching. It also involves attending to the institutional and cultural context in which they
teach, taking part in curriculum development, being involved in school change and
taking responsibility for their professional development.

In the light of this, Cole (1992), Coyle (2002), and Calderhead (1992) point out that
reflective teachers develop and use self-directed critical thinking and ongoing critical
inquiry in their practice, initiated by them and not administratively decreed. In other
words, critical thinking can only emanate from within those for whom the change is
intended and change can’t be implemented top-down (see Van Esch & St. John, 2003).
It is very difficult to achieve top-down effects because top-down decrees may not trigger
a personal recognition of the need to change or enable those it is intended to serve to
realize its benefits. Reflective teaching built on professional development is only
something done by teachers, not done to them (Kerry & Wilding, 2004). It must involve
an inner mental willingness to change for improvement. Reflective teaching implies that
change necessarily involves cognitive renewal---a change of mind---where new
perceptions enables an individual to move beyond existing thinking and construct deeper
understanding (cited in Sercu, 2007). The constructive spiral of professional
development should never stop during a teacher’s whole career.

How to make ‘a change of mind’ happen, the willingness to reflect on what teachers
believe and on how they teach is one of the distinguishing marks of open minds.
According to Dewey (1993), open-mindedness is ‘to recognize the possibility of error
even in the beliefs which are dearest to us.’ The assumption recognizes that ‘the

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alternative beliefs may be held by others’ (Borg, 2001) and some of our own cherished,
deeply-held beliefs may be erroneous and in need of revision. Without such an essential
attribute, teachers will not be able to reflect on themselves and interpret evidence with
balance or impartiality.

The second important factor in changing thinking and beliefs is that the felt-need for
change must be accepted by teachers. If teachers are unaware of need for change in
particular areas of their lives, they don’t have much incentive to make an effort to change.
Therefore it is vital to get a fuller picture of current realities so that relevant aims can be
set and responsible action can be taken (Baylis, 2004).

Apart from the need for change, teachers must foster the ability to challenge their own
beliefs. To question their own convictions implies an awareness of their own beliefs and
the ability to distinguish between those beliefs that are reliable and those less reliable in
the evidence-informed ideas and professional practice (Sercu, 2007). To achieve this,
teachers must be determined and willing to pursue intellectual integrity constructively in
a radical revision of belief systems.

Reflective practice is a key component within effective teaching and professional

development (Ferraro, 2000). It comprises a deliberate act of reviewing and critically
thinking about practice with the purpose of increasing learning opportunities for students
and teachers: ‘teachers need to learn how to analyze practice — both other teachers’
practice and their own’ (Willis, 2002: 34). Reflection on practice can lead to
self-generative change. It is a collaborative process where colleagues enter into a
reflective dialogue about practice and/or student achievement data, promoting a shared
focus and negotiated understanding within a school. Sharing and comparing personal
beliefs in the company of others enables individuals to see their own beliefs from the
viewpoint of others and to examine them critically. Learning with others, where

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colleagues and their ideas are treated seriously and respectfully, boosts the confidence of
each teacher’s sense of self which, in turn, fosters openness and willingness to respond to
the challenge of change (Pollard, 2002).

Summary
I started this section with a definition of the concept of ‘teacher’s beliefs’ and reviewed
what the connection between teachers’ beliefs and their actual teaching practice. I
analyzed the literature regarding foreign language teachers’ perceptions particularly on
beliefs regarding the goals of foreign language education, beliefs of culture and language;
beliefs of teaching and learning. Those will form the theoretical framework for my data
discussion.

I discovered that the research findings from literature investigating foreign language
teachers’ beliefs largely coincide with those of studies inquiring into teachers’ beliefs in
other subjects. The body of research into teachers’ beliefs suggests that teachers’
conceptions, to a certain extent, shape their teaching practice, although this is not always
the case as some research has shown.

Teachers’ general conceptions help the shaping of their context-specific conceptions,

which directly influences their choice of classroom activities. General conceptions and
context-specific conceptions are tacitly held and derived from their experience both as a
student and as a teacher. Mismatch of beliefs and practices sometimes occurs. It is not
clear how these conflicting beliefs influence teacher’s instructional decision making. But
studies suggest that as teachers’ experience grows they can develop their instruction with
little awareness of decision-making and conscious thought.

The studies also tell me that beliefs, once established, are not easy to change. Only
through consistent reflective teaching practice and strong willingness for personal,

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professional development, can the change occur.

The research and thinking on teachers’ beliefs discussed in this section provides me with
a perspective on how teachers may respond to cultural dimension teaching in language
education. Their conceptions of culture’s role in language teaching influence their choice
and decision of teaching content and teaching activities. From this discussion, it is clear
that to teach cultural awareness and communicative competence, teachers’ conceptions
must be changed from traditional transmission of knowledge to a new educational
agenda. The teacher as an agent of change plays a very important role in educational
innovation. This research offers me a threshold of understanding for enhancing
approaches to teacher development in future. The findings have helped me outline what
preconditions need to be met in terms of teachers’ beliefs, attributes and actions before
the innovation can be successful.
The changing definition of professional performance, which can come into conflict with
the daily practices and professional orientations of teachers; reforms requires the amount
of time and energy, and the resulting impact on the emotional lives of teachers (Veen &
Sleegers, 2006).

3.7 A summary of the chapter

At the beginning of this chapter, the relationship between language and culture is reviewed and the

implication for language and culture teaching is discussed briefly. Then from the chronological aspect

traces the development of culture study in China, and Chinese scholars and western scholars’

concepts on cultural contents which should be included in language teaching are analyzed. The basic

principles and factors affecting culture teaching and methods/techniques for culture teaching are also

discussed. Finally teachers’ beliefs regarding language and culture teaching and its connection with

their practices are analyzed, and this provides a basis for the empirical study which follows in the next

two chapters, fits with an explanation of the methodology in the next chapter and then with the

analysis of data in Chapter 5.

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 Chapter Four
Research Methodology

Introduction
In previous chapters I have relied on the conceptual analysis of existing literature
concerning culture teaching and the governmental documents of three countries’
language curriculums in terms of cultural aspects. It can be seen that cultural aspects in
the three countries’ language curriculums are given different emphasis. Since the English
curriculum is now touching upon the ‘cultural awareness’ for the first time, which was
discussed in Chapter Three, I want to see how school teachers perceive this issue, having
reviewed the relationship between teachers'’ beliefs and practices in Chapter Three
which suggests that what I can find out from teachers about their beliefs will give some
insight into their practice. Having also reviewed in Chapter Three the literature on
methodology for teaching cultural awareness, I will in future – after the completion of
the thesis – plan teacher training according to what the teachers believe and do and in
relation to what I have learnt about methodology.

Therefore I want to investigate school teachers’ and teacher trainers’ views about cultural
teaching in the language classroom in Xinjiang to see if they understand the integration
of language and culture teaching in practice, and the purpose of this chapter is to explain
how I decided to collect the views of language teachers and what data collection methods
I decided on and why I chose the methods. To be more exact, in this chapter on the
research methodology, the following questions will be answered:
What are major research methods in social science, especially in education?
Why is a survey method chosen to conduct the study?
What techniques or procedures are used to conduct the research?
What reliability and validity should be considered in this research?
What are the limitations of this research?

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What ethical issues should be considered in this research?

Each question will be discussed in a corresponding section. Section 4.1 will focus on the
discussion of the nature of the research and its main features of quantitative and
qualitative methods in education. Section 4.2 will explain why the quantitative research
method was chosen to conduct this survey study. Section 4.3 will explain the techniques
and procedures of collecting data in this study. They include the designing of the
questionnaire, pilot study, research samples, administration of data collection, procedure
of data collection, treatment of data. Section 4.4 will deal with the reliability and validity
that was considered in doing the questionnaire survey. Section 4.5 will discuss the
limitations of this research which must be considered. In section 4.6 the ethical issues
will be taken into an account while conducting this study. Finally, a summary of the main
content of the chapter will be given at the end of the chapter.

4.1 The nature of research in education

I didn’t understand the real meaning the word ‘research’ until I came to Durham in 2000
as a visiting scholar. To my knowledge at that time, doing research was the business of
scientists and was a big word. I, as a teacher and teacher trainer, never thought about it.
When I was in Durham I often heard people saying ‘I have researched this problem,’
‘my research experiment will run for another two weeks’. ‘PhD students’ were called
‘research students’ and some scholars were addressed as ‘research fellows’ etc.’ the word
‘research’ could be heard everywhere. During my stay in Durham, I came to understand
that research can be conducted in a host of situations by a variety of individuals and the
research can take a variety of forms depending on the unique characteristics of the
subject or topic under investigation (Wiersma, 1980). Research is one of many different
ways of knowing or understanding and it is a process of systematic inquiry (Mertens,
1998: 2). After reading some literature, better understanding of research was acquired
and my own research project reinforced my comprehension of what the nature of

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research is.

Research is the formal, systematic application of the scientific and disciplined inquiry
approach to the study of the problem (Gay, 2003: 3). Research is to discover the truth
which has been defined by Kerlinger (1970) as the systematic, controlled empirical and
critical investigation of hypothetical propositions about the presumed relations among
natural phenomena. Kerlinger clearly states research has three characteristics. First when
events occur in a haphazard manner, research is systematic and controlled because
operations are based on inductive-deductive reasoning. Second, research is also
empirical because scientists turn to experience for validation. And third, research is
self-correcting. Scientific methods have not only built-in mechanisms to protect
scientists from error, but also their procedures and results are open to public examination
by professionals. With this view, research is a combination of both experience and
reasoning regarded as the most successful approach to the discovery of truth, particularly
in natural science (Borg, 1963).

It is also believed that educational research is the systematic application of a series of

methods employed to provide trustworthy information about educational problems,
issues and topics. (Gay & Airasian, 2003: 3). Most researchers, including educational
researchers, undertake inquiry to gain understanding about some problems or topics that
they don’t fully understand. The general procedure or system they followed to gain their
understanding and improvement of their teaching is: 1) identification of the problem: the
researcher must understand the nature of the problem to be studied; 2) review the related
information: the related area of knowledge must be identified and literature is the source
of obtaining such information; 3) data collection; of course data can’t be collected in any
available haphazard manner. It requires proper organization and control so that the data
will enable valid decisions to be made about the research problem at hand; 4) data
analysis; it must be analyzed in a manner appropriate to the problem and 5) drawing

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conclusions; these conclusions or generalizations should be based upon the data analysis
within the framework of the research study. In order to implement this systematic
approach some scientific methods must be employed in doing any research. Different
writers use different terms for methodological classification. Methodology is an
umbrella word describing the different methods used in any research. It refers to
knowledge about methods and a very general approach to studying research topics
(Cohen, Manion and Morrison, 2000:22; Silverman, 2000:77). Within any social science,
there are usually two major research methods often referred to: quantitative and
qualitative research. In the following, the features of quantitative and qualitative research
will be discussed.

4.1.1 Quantitative or qualitative research

It was argued above that the fundamental purpose of educational research is to increase
our understanding of educational processes, practice, topics, and issues. For much of the
history of educational research, the topics or problems will be defined, the research
process will be carried out, data will be analyzed and results will be produced; finally the
quality of the study and its conclusion will be verified. For the most part, these research
procedures were based on scientific methods from the natural sciences for conducting
and obtaining educational understanding. Quantitative research methods are based on the
collection and analysis of numerical data, usually obtained from questionnaires, tests,
checklists, and other formal paper-and-pencil instruments (Gay & Airasian, 2003:8),
aiming at assessing and analyzing the relationships between certain variables (Cohen,
Manion and Morrison, 2007). It also involves stating both the hypotheses to be examined
and the research procedures that will be carried out in the study (Gay & Airasian, 2003).
Qualitative research methods are based on the collection and analysis of non-numerical
data such as observations, interviews, focus groups and videotaping (Gay & Airasian,
2003). Researchers seek understanding by observing phenomena in their natural settings

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rather than those set up specifically for the purpose of research and provide insights not
available through research such as an experiment or a test (Hammersly, 1998; Cohen,
Manion and Morrison, 2000).

Though many efforts have been done to define the quantitative and qualitative research,
it does not seem easy to make a clear distinction between them .The two approaches are
complementary in research and even indistinguishable in many respects. How the two
research methods are conducted reflects their different perspectives on meaning and how
researchers can approach it. The basic differences between the two types of research lie
in the nature of the data, in the methods for collecting and analyzing it. In other words,
the process of measurement has been at the centre of debates between exponents of the
two approaches (Punch, 1998:61). The decision on whether to have quantitative or
qualitative data or the combination of two types of data is not a matter for rules. The type
of data we end up with should be determined primarily by what we are trying to find out;
what are the context, circumstances and practical aspects of the particular research
project.

4.1.2 Choice of research method

Although the National Curriculum of China requires the inclusion of culture into the
English language syllabus, it doesn’t explicitly say how it should be done. Neither does it
give a very detailed description of the content of culture in English classes. Therefore the
purpose of this research is to investigate how school teachers and teacher trainers
perceive the cultural dimension of English language teaching, how they perceive the
objectives and aims of language teaching and cultural teaching; what the daily practices
and activities used in teaching cultures of English speaking countries are; how they
allocate their time in their teaching of culture in the English classroom; what their
attitudes towards the intercultural understanding and awareness are.

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In the light of the very nature of the questions given above, which directly ask the
informants to give information in relation to their perceptions towards the issues in
question, I decided to employ a survey based on the primary goal of obtaining basic
information from a larger number of school teachers dispersed over a wide geographic
area in the secondary English language education in Xinjiang, in the northwest part of
China. The detailed reasons why I chose a survey will be explained in the following
section. As far as the methodology is concerned, this research is to investigate a
quantitative, comparative study that comprises questionnaire answers gathered from the
school teachers and teacher trainers in Xinjiang and I decided to focus on quantitative
data as part of the decision to carry out a survey rather than observations in classrooms,
for example.

4.2 Survey study

Of all the research methods, survey research may be the most practical and usable in one
sense: it relies more on common sense and less on complex statistics. Often results
reported as percentages and averages are sufficient to explain the results of a survey
research project (Brown, 2001:15). Surveys are used to collect data information in many
fields, including political science, sociology, economics, and education. It is particularly
useful in language research because of the many types of data that can be gathered using
survey research, which can describe, explore, or explain physical characteristics,
phenomena, behaviour, attitudes, and so forth.

Surveys are usually conducted in the form of a questionnaire or interview, or a

combination of the two. Questionnaires and interviews share many of the same
characteristics. For example, they rely on directly asking people questions to get
information, but the questions are asked orally in an interview while the questionnaire is
in a written form. This is one of the distinct differences between the two methods.

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However there are also some differences between the two approaches, which have been
discussed by many researchers such as Seliger & Shohamy (1989) and Sapsford (1999),
among others. According to Seliger & Shohamy (1989):

Interviews are personalized and therefore permit a level of in-depth information

gathering, free responses, and flexibility that can’t be obtained by other procedures. The
interviewer can probe for information and obtain data that have not often been foreseen.
Much of the information obtained in an open/unstructured interview is incidental and
comes as the interview proceeds. There are disadvantages, however. Interviews can be
costly, time-consuming, and often difficult to administer. They depend on good
interviewing skills that might require extensive training. They may introduce elements of
subjectivity and personal bias, and rapport may cause the interviewee to respond in a
certain way to please the interviewer. (p.166)

Questionnaires on the other hand, according to Seliger & Shohamy (1989), are
self-administered and can be given to large groups of respondents at the same time. They
are therefore less expensive to administer than other procedures such as interviews.
When anonymity is assured, respondents tend to share information of a sensitive nature
more easily. Since the same questionnaire is given to all respondents, the data are more
uniform and standard. Since they are usually given to all respondents of the research at
the exactly the same time, the data are more accurate.

However, one of the main problems with questionnaires is the relatively low response
rate (especially with mailed questionnaires), which poses questions about the reasons
why certain people respond and others do not. A low return rate may therefore influence
the validity of the findings. Another problem with questionnaires is they are not
appropriate for respondents who are unable to read or write. This is especially relevant to
research in a second language, as people very often have problems reading and providing

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answers in L2. Thus there is no assurance that questions used in a questionnaire have
been properly understood by the respondents and answered correctly.

Considering the above mentioned advantages and disadvantages of both questionnaires

and interviews identified by Seliger & Shohamy, among others, a combination of the two
methods would apparently work together. However, taking into account the
disadvantages of the interview, which are difficult for me to overcome, in terms of time,
cost, the training of interviewers in my case, among other things, and in the light of the
information required to be elicited from the informants, I think a questionnaire survey is
sufficient enough and the only practical and the most appropriate means, in my case, to
get the needed information in response to my research questions:
1) What are the existing cultural elements in the curriculum in terms of ICC?
2) Is it necessary to teach culture in language education?
3) What are the school teachers’ perceptions of culture/intercultural teaching in the
classroom in the aspects of:
___How do school teachers of English define culture?
___How do they understand the language and culture teaching objectives?
___what are their favourite cultural topics to be taught in language teaching?
___What methods or approaches do they think should be used in teaching culture?
___How much time is distributed to teach culture in the language classroom and what is
the percentage of cultural content included in the exam?
___What roles do teachers play in language and culture teaching in their classroom?
4) Are teachers’ perceptions an encouraging basis for introducing change in their
teaching?

Thus, I decided to use a questionnaire as my instrument to elicit the data information needed and tried

as much as possible to reduce and avoid some of the above-mentioned problems derived from the

approach.

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4.3 The techniques and procedures of the questionnaire development

and administration

The procedures followed in the development of questionnaires and descriptions of their

contents will be the main topic of this section. Firstly, I will present an account of the
preliminary idea on which the questions will be developed and secondly, I will give the
procedures that were followed to implement the approach and administer it, including
piloting , sampling technique, data collection and treatment of data.

4.3.1 The preliminary idea of a questionnaire and its possibilities

While doing the literature analysis, I noticed that some surveys on teachers’ perceptions
of cultural teaching in language teaching have been conducted in a European context.
For example, the researchers of CULTNET, a network of researchers of interculture in
foreign language education conducted an international survey in 2001, involving foreign
language teachers in seven countries: Belgium, Bulgaria, Poland, Mexico, Greece, Spain
and Sweden. The aim was to define the mainstream of attitudes to the cultural dimension
of language teaching among the ordinary teachers. Another research project led by
Michael Byram and Karen Risager between 1992 and 1994 in England and Demark
explored the teachers’ views about culture, their preference for cultural topics in
language teaching and what they see as the aims of foreign language teaching in general
as well as how they view the purposes of the cultural dimension in particular. These two
projects were conducted with very similar purposes for investigating the teachers’ views
of the cultural dimension in foreign language teaching. Inspired by their research
findings, I found that the research or investigation into teachers’ perceptions on similar
issues as mentioned above is rare in China. Empirical research on school teachers’ and
teacher trainers’ views towards cultural teaching in foreign language teaching are hardly
made, though there have been more and more discussions about teaching culture in
foreign language teaching in recent years in China, as we have seen in earlier chapters.

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Thus, I want to carry out a similar survey on teachers’ perceptions of cultures, the
cultural dimension in language teaching, the objectives of language teaching and cultural
teaching, what cultural topics they would prefer to be taught and how to teach the culture
in which the language is taught in Xinjiang, Northwest part of China.

I decided to use some questions from the survey conducted by the CULTNET and by
Byram and Risager. As I understand most surveys are not just about describing
populations, but are to be used to test some conclusion or at least to find out how one
group differs from another. The prime purpose of a survey is to make planned
conclusions and comparisons (Sapsford, 1998), and therefore I want to compare some
findings of the CULTNET, and Byram and Risager’s findings with mine, trying to see if
there are any differences or similarities on teachers’ perceptions in language teaching in
different contexts: European countries and Asian country, Xinjiang of China.

4.3.2 The items of the questionnaire

As mentioned above, I have adopted some questions from the CULTNET project and
Byram and Risager’s projects for the purpose of later comparison. These questions are
rephrased to be suitable for my research. Some sentences have been paraphrased and
simplified for easy comprehension by teachers. However, the core concepts remain
unchanged for later comparative validity.

The questionnaire consists of 6 parts in which 26 questions are asked (see appendix 3).
The first part is about how teachers perceive the objectives of foreign language education
and culture teaching and culture teaching time. There are 8 questions in the first part.
Q1-2 asks the teachers whether their students and they are interested in learning/teaching
about cultural matters. The purpose of asking the school teachers/teacher trainers this
question is to find out how confident the teachers might feel about teaching culture and
whether their students, from the teachers’ perspective, might accept or resist them in

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transmitting culture while teaching the English language in the classroom. Q3 asks how
the teachers understand the concept of ‘culture’ in their teaching of English, which is an
open-ended question. The intention of this question is to elicit their initial definitions of
culture. Freedom will be given to teachers to let their thoughts roam freely and be
expressed spontaneously. Sometimes this spontaneity is extremely worthwhile as a basis
for new hypothesis (Oppenheim, 1966: 41). Overall information of teachers’
understanding of cultures from the instant responses to this question can be obtained.

Based on their answers to Q3, then teachers are asked in Q4 how important they think
teaching cultures is in English language teaching, from which the basic information data
might be obtained about their attitudes towards cultural teaching. Then in Q5 and Q6 I
want to get information about teachers’/trainers’ understanding of the objectives of
foreign language education and cultural teaching respectively. There are 6 sub-items in
Q5 indicating the objectives in language teaching. The first 4 objectives are taken from
our National New English Curriculum (NNEC) and the last two are borrowed from
Byram and Risager’s project (see Byram and Risager, 1999). In Q6 11 objectives of
cultural teaching are provided; the items of objectives 8, 9, 10, 11 are taken from the
National New English Curriculum (NNEC) and the other 7 objectives are borrowed from
the CULTNET project (see Sercu et al., 2005). As I discussed in the previous chapter
about the curriculum reform in China, the National New English Curriculum was
adopted from 2001. The phrase ‘cultural awareness’ has been introduced into the English
curriculum for the first time. I want to investigate through Q5-Q6 whether this new
change has influenced their language teaching and what they see as the aims of foreign
language teaching in general and how they view the purposes of the cultural dimension
in this context in particular. This is because teachers have always been regarded as one of
the most important factors that ensure a successful reform in the rapidly changing trend
of language teaching. The transmission of cultural knowledge in the classroom depends
largely on the teachers’ own cultural awareness and understanding of and willingness to

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accept this change and to what extent.

Q7 is intended to find out the allocation of time distributed to language and culture
teaching. And Q8 is about whether they want to spend more time on cultural teaching,
and if not, what the reasons may be for that. Teachers are invited to write the reasons in
the space provided, which, I hoped, may shed additional light on the way in which they
perceive the objectives of foreign language education and in particular on the importance
they give to culture teaching. Those two questions (Q7 & Q8) are taken from the
CULTNET project with some revision and paraphrasing. I want to find out whether there
exist common problems in foreign language education in terms of cultural issues in two
different contexts.

In part two, only two questions will be asked. Q9 is about a list of 19 possible cultural
topics to be offered in English language teaching. The teachers will be asked to choose
10 topics which they prefer to teach at secondary school level. Some of the topics are
taken from Byram and Risager’s (1999) questionnaire and some are from the CULTNET
questionnaire (see Section 5 in Sercu et al., 2005). Teachers are asked to suggest other
topics as well if they wish and they are encouraged to write one or two sentences to
explain why they choose that way. I want to their free views again on their understanding
of cultures.

Q10 asks teachers whether they think it necessary to provide a list of cultural topics as
appendix to the English curriculum to guide them in their teaching. Here some
explanation is needed to make this point clear. In this new curriculum there are six
appendices attached :1) a phonetic list ; 2) grammar list ; 3) vocabulary list ; 4) functional
topics; 5) teaching skills references ; 6) teachers’ classroom language, which teachers can
follow as a guidance in their teaching. However, there are no cultural aspects or cultural
topics in relation to language teaching included in the English curriculum appendices.

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Therefore I want to see what teachers think about the necessity of including possible
cultural topics as one appendix which may help to guide them in their teaching.

In part three only one question about cultural teaching activities (Q11) is asked of
teachers in order to find out their cultural teaching practices. They are required to
indicate for a number of possible cultural teaching activities how often they practice
them. The purpose is to explore the relationships between the culture teaching beliefs (in
Q6) and culture teaching practice (in Q11) used by teachers.

In part four there are five questions related to the English teaching materials. Q12 asks
who chooses the textbooks for teachers and whether they are free to use additional
materials for cultural teaching in their classroom in Q13. And then I ask in Q14 whether
the textbooks they use contain enough information about English language culture. Q15
asks them to estimate what percentage of cultural knowledge is included and finally Q16
asks whether the cultural content of the textbooks can meet their expectations. These five
questions are asked to find out, to what extent, cultural content is contained in the
textbook, one of the means for realizing the culture teaching objectives.

Part five is about intercultural foreign language teaching and 21 sub-items of choices in
teaching intercultural competence are given in Q 17. The 18 items concerning ICC are
borrowed from the CULTNET and the other three are added by me. The purpose of this
question aims to investigate teachers’ general disposition towards the teaching of
intercultural competence in a foreign language. I might obtain some potential
information data showing teachers’ favourable or unfavourable disposition towards the
integration of intercultural competence teaching in foreign language education. I hope
some potential light might be thrown on the research questions from different angles.

The last part asks for teachers’ personal information, concerning their age, amount of

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years of teaching, their educational background, which grade they are teaching and
where they are teaching and how many hours they are teaching etc. All together there are
nine questions included in part six. The purpose of asking these questions is to get
general information on the current situation for school teachers in Xinjiang. Their
educational background, their teaching load, their training on a new curriculum etc. may
provide some information for future teacher training programme development.

4.3.3. The design of the questionnaire

The design of the questionnaire is one of the most important elements in research
through survey. The success or failure of the questionnaire as a research method depends
heavily on the thorough preparation of questions and understanding of subject topics
(Hook, 1981). Questions should elicit the essential relevant information and direct the
focus to the research questions.

All survey questions can be classified into one of two general response formats based on
ways that respondents are required to answer the questions. Simply, some questions
require closed responses, while others require open responses (Mertens, 1997: 115).
Open response and closed response each has advantages and disadvantages.

Open-response has a number of advantages. According to Brown et al (2001:36),

open-responses can give respondents a great deal of flexibility in answering, which can
result in a wide range of possible answers and sometimes some unexpected answers may
be found. The possibility of unexpected answers, in turn, makes it useful to explore the
dimensions of the issue. However there are some disadvantages. Open-questions are
relatively difficult and time-consuming for the respondents to answer. Thus respondents
may skip such questions. In addition, open-questions are relatively difficult to codify,
analyze, and interpret. Some answers may turn out to be irrelevant to the purpose of the
survey.

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The disadvantages of open-response questions can be made up by closed-response
questions as closed-response questions can provide more uniformity across questions in
terms of types and specificity of data that are obtained. They are easy for respondents to
answer and easy to codify, analyze and interpret for the researcher because the data can
readily be expressed numerically. The potential for numerical analysis of
closed-response questions also lends itself to easier demonstration of the reliability of the
method as a whole. However, closed-response questions have their own disadvantages.
They provide a fairly narrow range of answers and some potential responses may
possibly be overlooked which are in fact important. Survey designers may be more likely
to find what they are looking for in closed-response questions, rather than finding
unexpected responses as they might do in open-response questions. Finally, clear,
concise, closed-response questions are relatively difficult to write.

The choices made between open response and closed response questions are not easy
ones. Considering the pros and cons of closed and open response discussed above, I can
see there are more disadvantages to open-questions and more advantages to
closed-questions which invite me to use more closed-response questions as the major
format in this survey. There are only three open-questions designed in Q3, Q9 and Q18.
Apart from the consideration of its strengths and weaknesses in each format on which the
questions are formed, I would also make the choices based on a theoretical point of view.
Questions in survey projects can serve three primary purposes: descriptive, exploratory
and explanatory. According to Brown (2001):

Surveys provide relatively efficient tools for gathering simple demographic or other
descriptive information, and also provide tools for in-depth investigations of
people’s ideas, attitudes, perceptions etc. Surveys can also lead to inferences that
help to explain what is observed in the process. In the case of closed-response

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 questions, which can easily be analyzed numerically, descriptive and inferential
statistics may help investigating any existing patterns, similarities, difference, and so
forth.

In my case I asked teachers about their educational status, age, teaching materials used,
internet access, teaching hours, grades they teach etc. I thought closed-response
questions are more suitable for me to get descriptive information. And in order to get
teachers’ opinions about cultural teaching in language education, I also used the
closed-response category in the different forms of checklist questions, alternative-answer
questions, Likert-scale questions and ranking questions that I think can serve my purpose
because 1) Checklist questions present a list in which the respondents are required to
indicate as many descriptors as possible as to their attitudes towards the issues
investigated in Q5, Q6 for example. 2) Alternative-answer questions are used to get
teachers’ views at the beginning of the questionnaire (Q1-2) in a general and less direct
way so as not to exert pressure on them (see Brenner, 1985:152). 3) Likert-scale
questions are used in Q4, Q10, Q11, Q17 to gather teachers’ views, opinions, and
attitudes toward the issue investigated which is a very effective approach (see Brown,
2001; Cohen, Manion and Morrison; 2000, Wiersma, 1980). 4) Ranking questions are
used to ask teachers to rank cultural topics in order of importance in Q9 to show their
understanding of the culture issue. At the same time I want to explore the in-depth
opinions of teachers on this issue I will use three open-response questions to the key
research questions in the approach to achieve the research purpose in this study.

Once the choice of question types has been made, I will have to consider some other
aspects of problems when the questionnaire is designed. The form of questions, the
clarity of the meaning and the respondents who will fill it out should be considered.

1) Thinking about the form

As a rule of thumb, short questions are desirable for two reasons. First, the respondents

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may find it easy to finish the questionnaire and not feel discouraged. Second, teachers in
schools are very busy and may think their time is valuable, so they may want to read and
answer the questions quickly. I will also make sure that questions are clear and
unambiguous. Furthermore, I am trying hard to avoid the appearance of negative
questions, incomplete questions, overlapping choices and questions across the pages in
the final questionnaire.

2) Thinking about meaning

The first issue related to thinking about meaning is to avoid double-barrelled questions
(Brown, 2001). I should not ask two questions at the same time and multiple purposes
make the question difficult to answer and certainly make accurate interpretation
impossible. Some other questions like leading and jumping questions must be avoided
when the questionnaire is designed.

3) Thinking about the respondents

The language level of teachers has to be taken into account. If the language structures are
too complicated or long sentences are used to form the questions, respondents may feel
threatened, thus not understand and be unable to answer the questions. I have to consider
the right level of language so that it was neither too high nor too low.

The last issue considered when I design the questionnaire was to arrange a series of
questions in sequences, each concerned with a different variable, and the order in which
these sequences should appear on the final questionnaire (Oppenheim, 1992: 109).

4.3.4 The Pilot Study

The aim of a pilot study, according to Seliger and Shohamay (1989), is to assess the
quality of the method ‘while it can still be revised and improved and before it is used
with the actual subjects in the research’ (p.195). Two types of information were collected
in the pilot phase. One related to practical aspects of administering the data collection

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tool; the other related to the reliability and validity of the method. The pilot study of this
research was conducted in Xinjiang and in Durham for the following purposes: (1) to
examine the reliability and validity of the questionnaires, (2) to verify the testing
procedures; (3) to determine the testing time required to administer the questionnaires;
and (4) to assess the clarity of the instructions.

Dornyei (2003: 64) points out that it is particularly valuable to include two formal trial
runs in the pre-testing stage (initial piloting of the method and the final piloting of the
method) and for this reason both are conducted in the present study.

1) The initial pilot study

As Gall, Borg, and Gall (1996) suggested, in pretesting a questionnaire, if the
respondents were selected from a homogeneous group, the pre-test sample did not need
to be large, as few as 20 individuals was often sufficient.

The preliminary set of questionnaires was piloted by e-mailing a small group of local
teachers in Xijiang: fourteen school teachers and six teacher trainers were involved.
Then I decided to send it to the Thursday Group members, the research Ph.D. students in
the School of Education Durham, UK, the easiest group to reach because I was in
Durham at that time. Another reason to invite Ph.D. students in Durham is that they are
doing their own research closely linked to intercultural studies and they are experts in
this field to an extent. Their expert comments and critique were of a great help in
revising the final version of the questionnaire. Eight Ph.D. students were involved in the
pilot test and five of them sent the feedback to me. The response rate was only 62%
despite the follow-up emails to express my thanks for the valuable time they contributed
to the pilot questionnaire. Attached to the first draft was a separate feedback form on
which respondents could critique the questionnaire and make suggestions before it was
revised and sent to the intended group of respondents. Due to the reasons presented
above, the feedback from respondents in China and the feedback in Durham were

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different.

As far as the length of the questionnaire was concerned, the respondents in China said
that it took them 55 minutes to answer it, which was almost equal to one school lesson.
They had never answered such a long questionnaire before. Some English sentences
were too complicated and long and would need to be simplified and made shorter and
clearer. It was suggested the final version of the questionnaire should be translated into
Chinese because school teachers might lose patience in comprehending the English
language and their true opinions may be affected by some language obstacles such as the
words ‘identity, stereotype etc.’ which might be new words to them. Apart from this, they
commented that some questions were repeated and overlapped and that redundancy
should be removed (some items in Q 17). On the other hand the feedback from Ph.D.
students in Durham University said that the length of the questionnaire was appropriate
and fine because this research project, they think, was a quantitative one in which the
survey would be used as a main research method from their professional point of view.
They also suggested that the Likert Scale used in the questionnaire should be kept
consistent, which made me realize that Q7 had four point scales and Q 17 had five point
scales out of my carelessness. The initial part four concerning the familiarity and
contacts with foreign cultures was considered irrelevant to my research questions, which
was critiqued by both Chinese respondents and Durham respondents and deleted in the
final version of the questionnaire. Q9 was about the possible cultural topics which might
be taught at middle schools level. All together 19 topics were given and teachers were
asked to rank the order of the topics according to their importance from number 1 the
most important to number 9 not important at all. From the initial pilot test, Q9 turned out
to be the most problematic. Some said the list was too long and should be shortened.
Some commented whether the ranking order from 1-9 should possibly be reduced to 1-5
for the sake of later analysis convenience.

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I decided to do the final pilot study on the comments and critiques described above and
mainly to focus on Q9 which was supposed to answer my second research question:
What are teachers’ favourite cultural topics in relation to language knowledge in
secondary level education?

In short, the comments collected from the pre-test participants studying at the University
of Durham and local teachers in Xinjiang of China were considered particularly suitable
for use in the main study. Comments from them were valuable and led to some changes
of format; modifications of the wording; simplification of the English language; and
reconstruction of some questions. However, the basic content remained unchanged.

2) The final pilot study

Before the second stage of the pilot study was conducted, the questions were translated
into Chinese as suggested by respondents in the initial pilot study. In order to validate the
authenticity of the translation, I sent the translation work in the format of two languages
(English and Chinese) to two experts in China for their corrections and comments. One is
from Hunan University and the other is from Xiamen University, which are two
prestigious universities in China. The two professors were assigned to work for my
college in 2004 under a five-year plan of education made by the central government with
the purpose of promoting the development of the western part of China. These two
professors’ research interest happened to be in translation. They helped me with some
corrections of my translation. In the second stage of the pilot study the number of the
participants was relatively small. There were 4 head teachers and 3 teacher trainers
participated in the final pilot study. The main objective of the second stage of the pilot
study was to allow for a final piloting of the research method, and, in particular to
discover whether the comments made by the informants in the initial pilot study in the
construction of the questionnaire were also clear and meaningful for new informants.

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4.3.5 Learning from the pilot study

Throughout both pilot stages, a great deal of useful information was obtained with regard
to the reliability, validity and practicability of the research method. In addition to
generating a clear and logical questionnaire in the main study, a number of alterations
were made to the design of the research approach following the completion of both
stages of the pilot study. First, following comments from participants involved in the
initial pilot study, a number of changes in the wording of the questions were made. These
alterations were made in order to ensure greater clarity and comprehensibility for the
informants recruited for the main study. Secondly, as mentioned already, it was initially
envisaged in part four that information should be collected regarding the informants’
familiarity and contacts with foreign cultures, as a result, the entire section was
subsequently deleted from the final version of the research method .Thirdly, the list of 19
cultural topics in Q9 was still kept but the ranking order of importance from 1-9 was
reduced to 1-5. The respondents would be asked to choose 10 possible topics and specify
briefly the reasons for their choices. In addition, as a number of the informants in the
pilot study had identified that the English version may be potentially confusing, it was
agreed that Chinese translations would be provided as part of the research method itself.
Finally, some informants had commented on the lack of space provided to write
responses. Thus, wider spacing was provided for comments to be made throughout each
part of the method.

4.3.6 Population and sample

Sampling procedures are necessary in survey research because the groups of interest are
often large. A population is the entire group of people who are of interest in a particular
survey. In most research, it is not feasible to collect data from every individual in a
setting or population. Therefore sampling is used for every practical reason. Sampling
involves selecting a small group of subjects from the overall population in such a way

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that a subgroup is representative of the large population (Brown, 2001:71; Mertens, 1997:
253).

The quality of any research is determined not only by the appropriateness of

methodology and instrument but also by the suitability of the sampling strategy that has
been adopted (Morrison, 1993: 112.). Among the strategies for survey sampling such as a
probability sample and non-probability sample (Cohen and Holiday 1979; 1982; 1996;
Schofield 1996, Henry, 1990; Conley and Fink, 1992, Mertens, 1997), I have decided to
use stratified random sampling, one of the strategies for probability-based sampling.
Stratification is a means of using the knowledge of the population to increase the
representative and precision of the sample (Moser, 1958: 78). Then the population is
divided into a number of subgroups or strata and a random sample is selected within each
stratum. The different strata in the population are represented in the sample (Brown,
2001).

As far as the knowledge of population and practicability are concerned, I chose Xinjiang
as my sampling site. This is simply because of the financial considerations and other
practical difficulties such as lacking time and possible local help and cooperation if an
unfamiliar area is to be selected. For example, if a sampling site is to be selected outside
of Xinjiang, where I live and work, it will produce some problems. They might include:
if I travel there to conduct the survey, to get from one place to another in China would
take time, even several days and nights by train. And it would be difficult to obtain local
help and co-operation for any research that is not locally officially organized in an
unfamiliar area. If I do it by post, I am sure that the return rate would be very low, which
would also reduce the validity of the research results.

Owing to the above mentioned practical reasons, the target population, about whom
generalization will be made in this study, is basically that of English language teachers in

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middle schools and teacher trainers in Xinjiang.

The whole population is stratified into four groups: the urban area (school teachers in
Urumqi, the capital city), regional area outside of the capital city (school teachers in
Shawan region), the rural area (teachers in village or in Tuanchang schools) and teacher
trainers in the capital city. The reason why the population is targeted in these areas will
be given below.

The capital city Urumqi has been chosen for two reasons. One is that Urumqi is a tourist
city and it attracts more and more foreign visitors, which might imply that students and
teachers might have more opportunities to experience and perceive foreign culture and a
foreign way of life. The other reason is the easy accessibility to the schools either by
official and personal relationship which enables me to conduct the survey according to
my time schedule. I also decided teacher trainer samples would be done in Urumqi
because there are five teacher training colleges/universities; four of them are in Urumqi.
The other one is over 1000 thousand kilometres away from me. It is not easy to get
access there. I think teacher trainers from these four colleges/universities can represent
teacher trainers’ opinions because most of the training tasks have been done by these
colleges/universities.

The region Shawan has been selected for three reasons: 1) Shawan is a relatively large
region and Han people are in the majority. When I think of the region stratification, I
have to take into consideration that Xinjiang is a multi-ethnic area. There are 13 minority
groups co-existing together with Han nationality people as the majority. Some regions
are mainly minorities-dominated in terms of the population and the schools in such
regions don’t offer any English courses, and it is impossible for me to conduct a survey
in minority-dominated regions. 2) The director of Shawan regional education
administration is the researcher’s personal friend who promised to arrange an agreed

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time for all schools in this region to participate in this research, which enables me to get
efficient data in a short time. 3) Due to financial and time considerations: Shawan is only
over 240 kilometres away from Urumqi with cheaper tickets when the journey is more
than 3 hours.

The rural area is very difficult either to locate or get sufficient samples for. It may take
one day or more to get from one village school or Tuanchang school to another by bus.
They are sparsely located within Xinjiang. If I needed to find village schools in one area
like Tacheng, and suppose there are 20 village schools in that area, it means I can get no
more than 20 responses because usually there are only one or two English teachers in
each village school and I may need to travel days by bus from one school to another to
collect data. In this case it is not practical. Due to this problem I had a discussion by
phone with a person who is in charge of middle schools English teaching and researching
for advice. I was told that the internet has been connected with nearby regions like
Kuitun, Shihezi and Yili even to the big villages and Tuanchang in those places
financially supported by the central government with the intention of developing the
Western part of China. She suggested the possibility of using an internet survey often
used in commercial fields. She was willing to help me to involve teachers in this
research .She thought it is a good thing to do research in my own area, but she didn’t
know how to help me. Encouraged by her suggestion, I decided to use mixed modes of
operation (paper-based and web-based versions of the same questionnaire) (Cohen,
Manion and Morrison 2007:227). According to Cohen et al., there are several claimed
advantages to using an Internet questionnaire in comparison to a paper questionnaire (e.g.
Watt 1997; Dillman 1999; Dillman and Bowker 2000; Roztocki and Lahri 2002; cited in
Cohen et al 2007: 229):
·It reduces costs (of postage, paper, printing, keying in data, processing data, interview
costs).
· It reduces the time taken to distribute, gather and process data (data entered onto a

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web-based survey can be processed automatically as soon as they are entered by the
respondent rather than being keyed in later by the researcher).
· It enables a wider and much larger population to be accessed.
· It enables researchers to reach difficult populations under the cover of anonymity and
non-traceability.
· Respondents can complete the questionnaire from home, i.e. in self-chosen and familiar
settings.
· Responses in web-based surveys show fewer missing entries than paper-based surveys.
· Greater generalizability may be obtained as Internet users come from a wide and
diverse population.

With these advantages in mind, I decided to choose Kuitun, Shihezi and Urumqi county
as my rural sampling place because the Internet has been connected to those areas. I am
endeavouring to receive equally good feedback from the electronic questionnaire as the
paper-based version and put it on the Durham website. A major problem for the
web-based questionnaire, according to Cohen et al. (2007: 237) is estimating the size and
nature of the population from which the sample is drawn. Researchers have no clear
knowledge of the population characteristics or size. The problem of population in my
case can be overcome and controlled. The population characteristics are still English
teachers in middle schools in Xinjiang. The valid representativeness of the sample
population can be guaranteed. The purpose of using web-based questionnaires is to reach
village or Tuanchang school teachers who are difficult to access. But the size of sample
is beyond my control in a sense. In order to get the expected sample size, I tried a
snowball sampling strategy to find out who has the information that is important to study
and to increase to a larger population (Mertens, 1997:263). I started with two key
informants who used to be my in-service students who are viewed as knowledgeable
about the programme and the community (Cohen et al., 2007: 263). Through email
contact and telephone calls to two students who work in Kuitun and in Shihezi where

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Tuanchang schools are densely located in Xinjiang. I explained the research purpose and
asked them to help me find the potential participants. They replied to my email at once
expressing their willingness to offer their help. I told them how to log on the website and
how to do it. The two students used their personal network to try to roll the snowball as
big as they can. They worked very hard to tell their friends who worked in Tuanchnag
schools by emails and phone calls and at the same time asked their friends to recommend
other school teachers with whom they can get in contact. Although I started with a
relatively short list of participants, the list grew through the referral of other participants.
(Cohen, 2007:231).

Beyond my expectations there are not only teachers from village schools or Tuanchang
schools that are involved in the questionnaire answers Some teachers either from city
schools or from regional schools filled it out online as well with their help. 210
respondents answered the questionnaire online.

4.3.7 Administration of the questionnaire and data collection

When it comes to the administration of the questionnaire, two approaches are often used.
The first one is the self-administered questionnaire which is often mailed out and filled in
by the respondents whenever and wherever they like, and then returned by mail (Brown,
2001). When this type is used, there are three major inherent problems to take into
consideration :a) the possibility of low return rates of questionnaires. Even if the original
sampling procedures were excellent in the sense that the sample drawn is either
randomly or as a stratified random sample, the generalization of the project’s results can
be severely undermined if only a small proportion of those in the sample actually
returned. b) the questionnaire must be finished completely individually and therefore
needs to be self-explanatory because it is impossible to give an on-the-spot clarification
(ibid: 6). In addition, language competence among respondents may be different or

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uneven when they comprehend and fill in the questionnaire. There is no opportunity to
offer additional explanations if needed. c) the conditions is not clear under which the
questionnaire is filled out. The second type is group-administered questionnaire, which is
given to groups of individuals all at one time and place (ibid: 6) and may solve the above
mentioned problems which may occur in self-administered questionnaires because the
respondents will be a captive audience, who will generally feel obliged to fill out the
questionnaire. Thus the return rate will be high. The second and third problems may be
solved because any ambiguities or confusion in the questionnaire can be explained on the
spot. Therefore I decided to use the second type of approach to administrate the
questionnaire in this research.

Before making the decision on how to administer the questionnaires, I was informed by
one of the colleagues in Xinjiang that there would be a one-day training session for
school teachers in the capital city of Urumqi on 22nd March 2007. I took advantage of
this teachers’ gathering to distribute the questionnaire to them on the spot for the
advantages mentioned above.

First, I had to contact the person who was in charge of this training programme and
fortunately this person had once worked together with the researcher. She was willing to
offer her help to arrange the time before the training course started. I decided to ask one
of my colleagues to take the copies of the questionnaire and go there to distribute them.
The colleague had to understand the purpose of this survey and the amount of time
needed for the respondents to fill it out. Some specific directions may be provided when
necessary, which may help the respondents to understand what is required, so there will
be less ‘spoiled’ responses, and an unknown amount of wrong information due to
misunderstanding (Cohen, et al., 2007: 109). I assumed that face-to face completion of
the questionnaire would be much more difficult to refuse than a postal questionnaire and
a higher returned rate of responses can be guaranteed in a sense. The validity of

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information I received can be guaranteed. 102 teachers attended the training course and
102 copies were distributed. 78 responses were collected and the return rate was 76%.

As far as the data from regional schools are concerned, almost the same approach to the
data collection was adopted. Shawan was chosen as the stratified sampling area for
regional school teachers (see previous section). One of my colleagues went to Shawan by
bus. Through the help of the regional education bureau, the teachers’ meeting time was
used to collect the data on the spot. 90 copies were distributed and 86 were collected. The
return rate was 95%.

As for village school teachers, it was impossible for me to use the same methods to
collect data as it is done in city and region. The reasons are explained in the previous
section. The modern technology of the Internet was used to reach the population which is
hard to reach. The web-based questionnaire with the same value as the paper one was put
on the Durham university webpage to be filled out online by the target respondents.
Among 210 online-answered respondents, there were 101 respondents from village
schools which was quite satisfactory coverage, i.e. 48%. Moreover there were 98 city
school teachers and 37 regional school teachers who answered the questionnaire online
as well. Thus total respondents of school teachers I got from the paper-based and
web-based are 400 in number, 176 from city schools, 123 from regional schools, and 101
from the village or Tuanchang schools.
The data from the last group will be teacher trainers from four different teachers’
universities or colleges. The same strategy was used as in city and regional schools to
collect the data on Wednesday afternoon used for all staff to attend a meeting (called
political study). Two colleagues used their meeting time to distribute and collect them
with the permission of the dean of the English department agreed in advance. 63
respondents out of 90 answered the questionnaire and the return rate was 70%.

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Clearly, the group administration strategy and web-based questionnaire offered me a
relatively efficient way of administering the questionnaire and collecting data either from
the practical or economical reasons which proved to be more suitable in this research.

4.3.8 Data Treatment: Statistical Procedures

In the process of the data collection, I was considering how to compile the data being
collected. The purpose of compiling the data is to put it into a form that will later be
useful for storing, accessing, sorting and analyzing it (Brown, 2001: 93). Since the
questionnaire had been conducted in Xinjiang by two colleagues, it was impossible for
the researcher to get all the copies back in Durham University to compile them. In order
to be efficient, I decided to ask my colleagues who had helped me with the questionnaire
to enter all the responses for me. The following steps were used:

1. Dealing with closed-response questions

I decided to use Excel (2000) to set up a rows-and-columns form to record all

closed-response questions. Each row represented a respondent’s answers to all the
questions, while each column represented all the respondent’s answers to a particular
question. The table below shows how I did it.

Table 4.1.The example of recording data in rows and columns

ID Q1 Q2 Q4 Q5-1 Q5-2 Q5-3 Q5-4 Q5-5 Q-6 etc

1 1 1 2 3 2 1 2 2 …

2 1 1 2 4 1 1 3 …

3 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 …

4 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 …

5 1 1 2 2 2 2 …

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6 2 1 1 2 2 1 1 1 …

7 1 1 2 2 2 1 1 2 …

8 … … … … … … … … …

The headings across the top begin with the first column of identification numbers for
each person (ID). It can be easily seen how each of the rows represents the data for a
single respondent. The remaining column has labels for each of the questions on this
survey. Question 1-2 and 4 (Q1, Q2 and Q4) are coded numeral 1 for ‘Yes’, 2 for ‘No’ .
The remaining questions are coded on a 1-5 Likert scale. I transfer ‘Very important ’into
1, Important 2, Undecided 3, Less important 4 and Not important 5. There are five sub
items in question 5 and they are coded as Q5-1 indicating the first item in question 5 and
the same way of coding is adopted in Q6, 9, 11 and Q17 respectively.

When the data were coded I found some respondents had not answered some particular
questions. Those missing data have also been coded as blanks in the correct column. It
can be seen from the Table 1 that the second respondent left one blank and the fifth
respondent left two blanks.

The most important point during the data entry is that accuracy is essential; as is said in
the computer world: Garbage in, garbage out. Put another way, the results will never be
any more accurate than the data on which they are based (Brown, 2001: 98). In order to
be as accurate as possible with the data coding, one colleague read the data out loud and
the other recorded it. And at the same time the colleague who was reading could check
accuracy of what was being recorded.

2. Dealing with open-response questions

Since the nature and purpose of open-response questions are quite different from those of
closed-response questions, I dealt with them differently. In the questionnaire there are

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three open-response questions in Q3, Q8 and Q9. The data from open-response questions
can’t be coded but transcribed. Transcribing means making a copy, arrangement, or
record of the data (Brown, 2001: 99). The computer word processing programme was
employed (Word, 2000) to have all of the answers for Q3, Q8 and Q9 typed. Before
doing it, I made three files for each question, which would enable me to read through
these filed data with relative ease (see Table 2 Transcribing open-response questions).

Table 4.2 The example of transcript of open-response questions

ID
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86

87

When the data were transcribed, I was aware that accuracy is important with
open-response transcription, just as it is for closed-response coding for the reasons
mentioned earlier. The two colleagues were asked to transcribe exactly what each
respondent was writing, including wrong spelling (of course the computer can help to
correct them), ungrammatical sentences, punctuation etc. This exact transcription is done
so that an accurate record would exist of the actual responses.

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3. Dealing with paper-based and web-based questions

My original purpose in using web-based questionnaire was for village school teachers
who are not easy to access. However, when the survey reached its deadline I noticed that
there were some city and regional school teachers also involved in the online survey.
Therefore I had to single out those who were from village schools and those who were
from city and regional schools by looking at the 22nd question ‘your school is in city,
region, town, village and tuanchang’. The five choices were coded in number. ‘1’ stands
for city school and ‘2’ for regional school etc. The work turned out to be very time
consuming. After I finished this job I combined the data from the paper-based and
web-based questionnaires together because they have the same value with the same
population. In order to be accurate in coding the web-based data, I did it once and asked
my two colleagues to enter the data again to double check. In the end I received 463
responses, of which there were 176 respondents from city schools; 123 from regional
schools; 101 from village schools and 63 from teacher trainers.

4.4 Survey reliability and validity

Reliability and validity are two very important criteria for assuring the quality of the data
collection procedures in social sciences empirical research.

As far as survey reliability is concerned, according to Brown (2001: 171): ‘Survey

reliability is the consistency with which a survey measures whatever it is measuring’.
What is meant by consistency in this definition is that when the procedure is repeated on
a population of individuals or groups, the responses should be the same – this is
test-retest reliability – and if several people were reading the responses they would
interpret them in the same way: inter-rater reliability. Reliability is usually tested by
statistical operation, indicated by the reliability coefficient, alpha. DeVellis (1991)
described alpha as ‘an indication of the proportion of variance in the scale scores that is

187
attributable to the true score’ (p.83). Ideally there should be no variance but a score of
higher than .70 is suggested by Nunnally (1994) and Litwin (1995) as acceptable.
Theoretically, the higher the coefficient, the more reliable the method is. I therefore fed
the data from 90 items in the 26 questions included in the questionnaire into the SPSS
test for reliability which yielded alpha coefficient of .93. Since this exceeded the lower
acceptable value of .70 for alpha, I was satisfied that the questionnaire used in this
research is reliable.

In addition to this, it should be noted that the current questionnaire is a lengthy one,
including many items (90 items), and that this in itself increases the reliability of the
methods according to Hatch and Farhaday who state that: ‘The longer the test, the more
reliable it will be.’ (1982:246).

Validity is the touchstone of all the types of educational research a researcher will try to
ensure (Cohen, et al., 2007). In qualitative research, validity might be addressed through
the honesty, depth, richness and scope of data achieved, the participants approached, the
extent of triangulation and objectivity of the researcher (Winter, 2000 cited in Cohen, et
al, 2007), while in quantitative research, validity might be improved through careful
sampling, an appropriate method and appropriate statistical data analysis.

As for this case, the study is quantitative in nature. I used a survey method to find out
what I intended to discover. In other words, a survey method should be measuring what it
claims to be measuring (Brown, 2001:176). In establishing the validity of a survey
method in the form of questionnaire, I had to consider its sampling, content and construct,
which some researchers called content validity and construct validity (Nunan, 1992:16;
Seliger & Shohamy, 1985:27; Punch, 1998:101; Brown, 2001:177). According to Brown
(2001), one way to defend the content validity of the items is to explain how you planned
the questions, which I did in section 4.3.2. And constructing validity, as Seliger and

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Shohamy (1985) stated, is to examine whether the data collection procedure is a good
representation of and is consistent with current theory underlying the variable being
measured, which I explained in section 4.3.7 .Nunan (1992) explained the term in an
even more accessible manner, maintaining that construct validity has to do with the
formulation of the question: Is the question actually addressing the concept it is supposed
to be investigating? In order to achieve this kind of validity, in addition to the
explanations just mentioned, I consulted my supervisor and other experts like Prof. Wu
Yangcai of the University Hunan and Prof. Zhangbin of the University of Xiamen in
China to seek their expert views on whether the objectives of my research were covered
by the survey questions. They confirmed that the survey questions did indeed meet my
research the objectives. Thus I feel my claim for the construct validity of my survey is
strong.

Finally, I have to be sure that it is the target respondents who fill it in rather than someone
else and they were asked to do it in front of the researcher’s colleague. The validity of
information is dependent on the honesty of the respondents (Mertens, 1997:105). I also
looked at the responses from the respondents, and feel sure that the data collection
procedure measures are what need to be measured.

The sampling is central in ensuring the reliability and validity of the questionnaire. As
discussed in section 4.3.6, the stratified sampling strategy was used by which I stratified
the population into four strata. In each stratum the samples were chosen in order to
achieve a truly representative sample but in practice a snowball sample process had to be
used for practical reasons as explained above.

Finally, as it is mentioned in section 4.3.1, I want to compare the findings with

CULTNET’s and Byram and Risager’s study. If such an external check is corroborative it
may be justifiable to say that the external validity can be ensured.

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4.5 The limitations of this research

To have good and valid research, apart from its strong basis of theory and appropriate
research methods, research funding and time are considered necessary factors in
conducting any research. As a teacher-researcher in a north-western part of China, an
underdeveloped and multi-ethnic area, working without any research funding, is surely
restricted in terms of time and money available for the research. I could not reach more
places in China to get a larger number of samples, but the sample from more various
places in Xinjiang might offer some significant findings in this research.

Another limitation of this research lies in the fact that only a questionnaire is used as the
main research method. If I had financial means and time, I would like to conduct
interviews as other researchers usually do after a questionnaire survey. The constraints
would have made the process of the interview data collection impossible for me.
However, in working through the data, I found that due to the careful design of
questionnaire I have obtained the relevantly valid and enough relevantly valid
information to achieve this research purpose. The best piece of research ‘make[s] a lot
out of little’ (Silverman, 2000; cited from Yuweihua 2001). That is why I decided not to
use other varieties of research techniques.

The last difficulty associated with this study is the fact that the concept of ‘cultural
awareness’ has been introduced into the English curriculum for the first time in China.
Under the exam-oriented educational context in which linguistic competence is still
strongly stressed in language education, especially in the basic education, it is hard to
predict how this new change in curriculum reform, will influence teachers’ perceptions
and whether this change arises due to teachers’ awareness of cultural teaching. However,
in China little research of this kind has been carried out, and how much this research

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could be considered by the curriculum designers is unclear because this research is a
drop in the ocean, even if the findings of this research are significant and valuable.

4.6 Ethical issues

First of all, an approval from the ethics advisory committee of the School of Education,
University of Durham had to be gained before conducting the survey research.

Secondly, when I designed this questionnaire, I had to show my great concern for the
respondents from the following aspects (Berg, 1995, Fetterman, 1989, Delamont, 1984).
The respondents must be treated with respect, using clear easily understood language to
inform them of the nature of the research, the time that is involved, the methods to be
used and the use of findings. A clear explanation of the research purpose was provided
and the respondents were informed that the research was to be carried out by a
teacher-researcher in language education as an individual and not in any official capacity
with the intention of improving future teaching. They were advised that they should not
feel threatened or challenged by the researcher. All these points were explained in a
cover letter either on the paper-based or online survey (see Appendix 2).

Their opinions on the questions were of great help to the research studied for the
following reasons:
The respondents voluntarily answer the questions without involving any relationships of
power which make them consent to do it.
The contents of the questionnaire are closely related to language and culture teaching
rather than private or intrusive information, which may make respondents feel uneasy
about responding. .
The respondents’ anonymity is assured and their true answers will do no harm to
themselves but will contribute to the true findings of the research.

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In the cover letter I expressed my sincere thanks to the respondents and also expressed
my wish to establish a rapport with them for the future discussion of any problems
related to the issues in the questionnaire by providing my email if they would like to
contact me. Thus they would not feel that they are being exploited.

Thirdly, since this research requires the other two colleagues to distribute the
questionnaire and enter the raw data into the computer, they were doing it willingly and
publicly without any pressure and deception when collecting and recording the data.
Both of them said they had learnt a lot through practice. The researcher promised to send
the research methodology chapter based on theory to both of them to read.

Lastly, as mentioned before, this research is inspired by the CULTNET and Byram and
Risager’s projects and some questions are adopted from the two projects, and when I
compare the variables measured, report the research findings and draw the conclusions, I
will try to be as objective and truthful to the findings as possible.

4.7 A summary of this chapter

In this methodology chapter, I began the discussion of the nature of the research in social
science especially in education. Some research methods were analyzed with the purpose
that I can make the decision which research method will be used to conduct this
empirical study. The reasons why the questionnaire was used in this research and how I
used this instrument to collect the data were explained, including the phases of
questionnaire development, pilot study, administration of the questionnaire and
procedures of data collection, sampling strategy and the treatment of data. The reliability
and validity of the questionnaire were also discussed in relation to this questionnaire
survey.

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As a novice researcher, I became intensely aware that what I tried to investigate by
means of a particular research method which I read about in some methodology books
for guidance is far from enough. The research methodology in social science or in
education is multidimensional and powerful. Therefore I acknowledge that this study
must have its flaws and limitations. Nevertheless, I hope that analysis resulting either
from relevant curriculum documents, literature, or from the questionnaire survey will be
considered valid enough to reflect the true reality I studied and to have some significance
as a contribution to the development of English curriculum in China’s basic education.

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 Chapter Five

Results of the Survey and Discussion

Introduction

Chapter 4 provided a detailed description of both the research approach and the methods
employed in this study in addition to a justification of their selection. This chapter
presents the results of the study and I will use the term ’teachers’ to cover all respondents
including trainers unless there is a need to distinguish the two groups. The chapter is in
nine sections: (1) the basic information of school teachers’ profile in secondary school;
(2) descriptive analysis of the language and culture teaching objectives; (3) teachers’
definition of culture; (4) teachers’ favoured cultural topics; (5) techniques teachers used
in classroom; (6); teaching time allocated to culture teaching ;(7) teachers’ perception of
cultural teaching materials in the textbooks; (8) teachers’ understanding of intercultural
teaching; (9) a summary of the chapter

Before the analyses of the data are provided, an explanation of the informants is needed.
A total of four hundred school teachers and sixty-three teacher trainers took part in the
study. Teachers are from schools in different regions and teacher trainers are from the
four teacher training colleges in the capital city Urumuqi.

5.1 The basic information on English teachers and trainers’ profile in

Xinjiang

The data collected in this study provided me with the general information about school
teachers/trainers in language education in Xinjiang. From their personal profile
macroscopic information can be obtained in terms of their age, education background,
teaching hours etc. Therefore the sample composition will be presented in the following

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Table 5.1 by age, years of teaching, grades they teach, education backgrounds, hours
they teach etc. in order to have a whole picture of the current situation of the teachers
structure in Xinjiang.

Table 5.1 the general information of English teachers/trainers

Number/ Percentage
By age Teachers Trainers
20-39 292/73% 42/66.7%
40-49 77/19.25% 19/30.2%
Over 50 13/3.25% 2/3.1%
Missing data 18/4.5% 0
Total 400 63
By years of teaching Teachers trainers
1-10 224/56% 41/65.1
11-20 94/23.5% 13/20.63
Over 21 65/16.25 9/14.29
Missing data 17/4.25 0
Total 400 63
By grades they teach Teachers trainers
Grade7-9 216/54%
Grade10-12 154/38.5
University 63/100%
Missing data 30/7.5% 0
Total 400 63
By records of Formal Schooling Teachers trainers
2-year diploma 60/15% 2/3.17
4-year diploma 277/71.9% 26/41.27
B.A 39/9.27% 17/26.98
M.A 9/2.25% 17/26.98
Ph.D. 1/1.59
Missing data 15/3.75 0
Total 400 63

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 By teaching hours Teachers trainers
1-10 142/35.5% 5/7.94
11-20 232/58.9% 56/88.9
Over 20 10/2.5% 2/3.17
Missing data 16/4% 0
Total 400 63

From the above table, it shows the age group from 20-39 of school teachers (292/73%)
and trainers (42/66.7%) are the majority who are in their younger-middle age full of
vitality and energy and they are sure to accumulate considerable teaching experience
through years of professional practice. The data show that majorities of teachers
(224/56%) and trainers (41/65.1%) have teaching experience of 10 years. It may be
ascertained that they must become the major teaching backbones in their schools.

In China, the age division line is a very clear and sensitive issue. People at the age of
30-40 are considered to be at the best time in their career. After 40, especially women are
losing their compatibility in job employment if they don’t have higher degree
background. After 45, chances are even less for them to get a decent job or chances for
professional development. In schools, if teachers are over 40, they are usually
considered too old to be given chances for further training or going abroad. The results
show that only two out 10 are over 40. The majority of teachers who replied to the
questionnaire are the main teaching force in their own schools taking up the most of
heavy teaching loads.

The data show that a majority (232/58.9 %) of teachers have to teach 11-20 hours per
week. Compare with European teachers: British teachers have to teach 20 hours/week;
the Poles, Mexicans and Bulgarians teach 23 hours/week, the Swedes teach 15 hours,
each teaching hour lasting a full hour, not 50 or 40 minutes, (Sercu, 2005) Chinese
teachers don’t seem to have more teaching hours from the Table 5.1 shown above.

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However, if the class-size in secondary schools and other factors are considered in China,
the teaching load of 11-20 hours is much higher for teachers. There are usually 65-70
students in each class in China (which may be two or three times the class-size in
Europe). Each English teacher usually teaches at least two or four hours a day in two
parallel classes. What is more, the English teacher must be a class advisor in one of the
classes she/he teaches. Every day the class advisor must look after the class she/he is in
overall charge from morning when students come until they leave school. The English
course is one of three major courses (along with mathematics and Chinese) in the whole
process of secondary learning and the teachers who teach these three courses must take
the class advisor post as obligatory responsibility. Teachers who teach school courses
designated in the curriculum have to assign an amount of homework for students every
day and on the following day the homework will be collected and marked. Every week
the three major courses will be tested as weekly records which will be counted at the end
of each term. So apart from actual teaching hours in the classroom, teachers have to
mark at least 120 copies of homework every day and testing papers every week. The real
meaning of heavy teaching load for school teachers in China appears to be clearer. As
for trainers, most of them (56/88.9) also teach 11-20 hours a week. This is a lot for
university or college teachers because, apart from teaching, they are required to finish
their academic tasks like publishing papers and doing projects etc. If they are unable to
finish what they are asked to do academically, their yearly evaluation and professional
promotion will be affected. Teaching and research are equally counted. This is even
harder for language teachers to balance the two. In my area the number of language
teachers is far from being sufficient either at the schools or at the universities/colleges.
They have to complete a certain amount of teaching tasks first and then try to find time
to do research.

As for grades teachers teach, the data show that most teachers (216/ 54%) are teaching
junior middle classes and (154/38.2%) are teaching senior middle classes. This coverage

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of respondents is good for the present research to obtain a relatively complete picture of
teacher’ views both from junior and senior school teachers who possibly hold different
views towards some questions with respect to students’ age, language competence and
some other factors. Thus the information of respondents provided can be objective and
well-covered.

In terms of their education background the data show that 17/26.98% trainers have B.A
and 17/ 26.98% have M.A degree which does not meet the local government
requirement that university/college teachers must at least have their M.A degree if they
are born after 1970. There is no strict rule to those who were born before 1970. But the
recent situation is that if you don’t have M.A degree, you can’t become a college or
university teachers. Therefore I will say that there is long way to go to have trainers/
teachers with PhD degree. How much education the teacher/trainer receives may directly
influence the quality of teaching and research.

As for teachers, the data show that 337/ 86.9% teachers have got their teaching
certificates either 2-year or 4-year diploma, not B.A. degree. Only 39/ 9.27% teachers
have got their B.A degree, not to mention to M.A degree, which is only 9/2.25% in total.
This shows that most of teachers are graduates from teachers’ colleges rather than formal
universities. There are some differences of the qualification system between teachers
colleges and normal universities, which it is necessary to explain in brief because this
may affect their responses in a sense.

The teaching certificates are two types; two-year training certificate (called Zhuanke),
another two-year training certificate (from upgraded Zhuanke to Benke, equivalent to
B.A).With the first two-year teaching certificate obtained, most graduates will have to
go to teach for some time and then possibly they will have another two year’s further
training if they are allowed by their schools. But what they have got is not B.A degree

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though equivalent to four years of formal university education. This is because they
don’t take part in the national entrance examination for university. They only participate
in the national adult entrance examination or self-taught examination though which is
easier to be admitted by universities or colleges for adults. Therefore the quality of their
qualification is often said to be problematic and the graduates from adult colleges or
universities are often considered inferior to those who graduate from formal universities
in job markets. Those who graduated from the adult colleges usually are not offered any
degree.

With regard to their age, years of teaching, the grades they teach, teaching hours and
educational backgrounds, the general information from the teachers/trainers’ profile in
Xingjian has been obtained. It shows that most of teachers/trainers are in their
middle-age and have accumulated some teaching experiences. The majority of teachers
have obtained their teaching certificates which have fulfilled the government’s
requirement that those who teach middle schools must have Benke teaching certificates
(four year). English teachers have to teach large classes requiring them to take the heavy
teaching loads which are far beyond European teachers. Thus, in turn, the heavy working
pressure they withstand may affect their professional development in a sense.

5.2 Descriptive analysis of teachers’ and trainers’ beliefs about

language and culture teaching

The teachers’ and trainers’ basic beliefs on language and culture/intercultural teaching
will be investigated and results will be presented in this chapter .I hope the findings may
answer my second and third research questions ‘Is it necessary to teach culture in
language teaching’ by looking at questionnaire questions: Q1, Q2, Q4, Q10); ‘What are
the school teachers’ perceptions of culture/intercultural teaching in the classroom in the
aspects of ‘:

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How do they understand the language and culture teaching objectives? (Q5 Q6)
How do school teachers of English define culture? (Q 3 open-question)
What are their favourite culture topics to be taught in language teaching? (Q9)
What methods or approaches do they think should be used in teaching culture? (Q11)
How much time is distributed to teach culture in the language classroom? (Q7 Q8)
What is the percentage of culture content included in the exam? (Q15)
What are the teachers’ perceptions of cultural teaching materials in the textbook? (Q12
Q13 Q14)

The above questions will be answered and discussed in the following sections.

5.2.1 Teacher’s and trainers’ attitudes towards culture teaching (Q1, Q2,

Q4, Q10)

According to Gay’s view (1976: 223) ‘The first step in data analysis is to describe, or
summarize the data using descriptive statistics. In some studies, such as certain
questionnaire surveys, the entire analysis procedure may consist solely of calculating
and interpreting descriptive statistics. Descriptive statistics permit the researcher to
meaningfully describe many sources with a small number of indices.’ Therefore
descriptive statistics such as means, standard deviations, frequencies and percentage
were used to compute on the questionnaire items of questions (Q1), (Q2), (Q4), and
(Q10) to address the second research question: ‘Is it necessary to teach culture in English
language teaching’?

The question 1 and question 2 ask teachers and teacher trainers ‘Are your students
interested in learning culture(s) of English speaking countries?’ and ‘Are you interested
in teaching culture(s) of English speaking countries?’ .The first one is from teachers’
perspective to look at student’ curiosity towards cultural learning and the second one is

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about teachers themselves, to show their own attitudes towards cultural teaching. The
scale range is ‘very interested, interested, uncertain, less interested and not interested’. If
I combined ‘very interested’ and ‘interested’ together to show their positive attitudes
towards the culture teaching and ‘less interested’ and ‘not interested’ to indicate the
negative attitudes towards this issue, and keep ‘undecided’ as it is, the results obtained
from these two questions are presented in the Table 2 below:

Table 5.2 Teachers’ and teacher trainers’ interest in culture teaching

Interest in Teachers Teacher trainers

teaching culture F P M SD F P M SD
Q1 1 276 71. 1.38 655 58 92.1 1.08 272
2 73 18.7 5 7.9
3 40 10.3
Total 389 100. 63 100.
Q2 1 326 83.8 1.21 508 59 93.7 1.08 326
2 45 11.6 3 4.8
3 18 4.6 1 1.5
Total 389 100. 63 100.
1+2 =Very interested; 3=Undecided, 4+5=Not interested; F= Frequency; P=percentage;
M=Mean; SD=Standard Deviation

It can be seen that either from teachers’ or teacher trainers’ everyday teaching in the
classroom, most teachers/trainers say that their students (276/71.5%; 58/92.1%) are
interested in learning cultures of English speaking countries. Teachers/trainers
themselves are also interested in teaching cultures in language teaching. For teachers
themselves I could say that this may be due to the reason that 310/ 80.5% teachers have
received the new curriculum training shown by the data in the Q 26. The concept of
‘cultural awareness’ has been introduced for the first time into the English curriculum in
2001 as it was discussed before (in chapter 3). Teachers are sure to have got some
understanding of integration of language teaching with cultural teaching and gradually
realized the importance of raising students’ cultural awareness in language teaching. As

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for why students are curious about the foreign cultures and what is their motivation in
learning language in terms of culture, it is very hard for me to speculate. This is not the
topic for this research.

The data also show that there are some teachers /trainers (73/18.7% ; 5/7.9%) who are
not sure whether their students have any interest in cultural learning or not and are not
clear whether they themselves (40/10.3%) are interested in teaching foreign cultures.
The uncertain and even negative opinion towards this new dimension of language
teaching could be regarded as normal and acceptable in such a large area. Teachers can’t
be expected to digest the new concept just with the few training courses to reach
common ground of understanding towards this rather complicated issue of culture
teaching.

In order to get further understanding of teachers’/trainers’ general opinions towards

cultural teaching, I continue to ask another question (Q4) ‘Do you think culture teaching
is important in English teaching’, using a five-point scale: ‘Very important, important,
undecided, less important and not important’. I combine ‘Very important and important’
together to indicate teachers’ positive attitude towards the cultural teaching and ‘less
important and not important’ to indicate teachers’ negative attitudes towards this issue.
The neutral one ‘undecided’ is kept as it is. The result is shown by the Table 3 below.

Table 5.3 Teachers’/trainers’ opinion on the importance of culture teaching

Q4 Teachers Teacher trainers

F P M SD F P M SD
1 72 18.5 2.10 .840 21 33.3 1.76 .640
2 251 64.5 37 58.7
3 28 7.2 4 6.4
4 33 8.5 1 1.6

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5 5 1.3
Total 389 100. 63 100.
Note: 1=Very important; 2=Important 3=Undecided; 4=less important; 5=Not important
F=frequency; P=percent; M=mean; SD=standard deviation

I am convinced again by the results shown above that teachers/trainers have positive
opinions about cultural dimension of language teaching. If I put answers 1 and 2 together,
over 83% teachers and 92% teacher trainers think that teaching culture is important and
only less than one out of ten feel it is not important in this aspect.

Therefore it is evident that teachers on the whole show great interest in teaching culture
in language teaching and accept the significance of the cultural dimension of language
teaching. The concept of ‘cultural awareness’ which appeared in the curriculum
probably exerted some potential influence on teachers’ thinking.

In question 10, the teachers/trainers are asked if it is necessary to have a cultural

appendix included in the English curriculum, using a five-point scale: ‘Very necessary,
necessary, undecided, less necessary and not necessary’. The same way is used
combining ‘Very necessary and necessary’ together to indicate teachers’ positive
attitudes towards the cultural teaching and ‘less necessary and not necessary’ to indicate
teachers’ negative attitudes towards this issue. The result is presented as follows:

Table 5.4 The necessity of having a cultural item in the curriculum

Q10 Teachers Teacher trainers

F P M SD F P M SD
1 68 17.5 2.55 1.108 11 17.5 2.03 .671
2 137 35.2 39 65
3 112 28.8 9 14.3
4 47 12.1 4 3.2
5 25 6.4

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 Total 389 100.0 63 100.
Note: 1=Very necessary, 2=Necessary, 3=undecided, 4=less necessary, 5=not necessary
F=frequency, P=percent, M=mean, SD=standard deviation

Putting answers 1 and 2 together, I can see that most teachers (205/52.7%) and teacher
trainers (50/82.5%) expressed that it is necessary to have a culture appendix included in
the curriculum to guide their teaching. In the new curriculum (2001), there are five items
as appendixes: phonetic list, vocabulary item, functional topics, grammar items and
teachers’ classroom language. Those five appendixes are guidelines of teaching contents
in each aspect. Teachers are clearer about what is to be taught, for example, with respect
to vocabulary item; they are informed how many words should be acquired in junior and
senior level. Since cultural awareness appears as one of the language teaching and
learning objectives, teachers think that there should be culture guidance for them to
follow.

From the above presentation of the results obtained from Q1, 2, 4 and 10, it can be seen
that most teachers/trainers are interested in teaching culture and their students are also
interested in learning culture. The importance of teaching culture in language classroom
and the necessity of having a cultural item are expressed by the majority of teachers. The
answer to the second research question is clearer. Teachers/trainers think it is necessary
to teach culture in English language teaching. Then how teachers/trainers understand the
objectives of language teaching in terms of culture teaching interests me. In the next
section I will focus on the analysis of teachers’ thinking about language
teaching objectives.

5.2.2 Teachers’ perceptions of language teaching objectives (Q5)

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From the preceding section, it is clear to see that teachers are interested in teaching
culture and their attitudes towards culture teaching are positive. The majority of
teachers/trainers are in favour of cultural dimension in language teaching. The question
now arises as to why they think there should be a cultural dimension in their teaching,
what its purposes are. In this section I will look at teachers’ perceptions of aims of
English teaching.

In order to find out how teachers define the aims of English teaching, they are asked
‘How do you perceive the objectives of English teaching?’ by doing a Likert Scale
question in Q5 from ‘very important to not important’. This question contains six
statements regarding the objectives of English teaching. The first four statements are
taken from the new English curriculum with the expectation that they are familiar with
the aims of FLT and the last two were borrowed from CULTNET addressing either
linguistic or culture/ cultural learning skills objectives. The six statements of objectives
of FLT appeared in the questionnaire in random order (See questionnaire Q5). The table
below has been rearranged here according to three aspects: culture learning objectives,
language learning objectives and general language education objectives.

Table 5.5 The list of objectives in English language teaching

Cultural learning objectives

1. Promote students’ familiarity with the culture, the civilization of the countries where
the language which they are learning is spoken.
2. Raise students’ awareness of openness and willingness to accept the world culture.
3. Assist students in developing a better understanding of their own identity and culture.
Language learning objective/skills
4. Assist students to acquire a proficiency of English language which will enable them to
meet their future needs in their learning, work and life .
General language objectives/learning skills

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5. Develop students’ long-lasting enthusiasm for learning, good learning habits and
self-confidence in learning English well.
6. Let students experience the learning process, acquire the learning methods of
scientific research and promote awareness of cooperation

Table 5.6 The result of teachers’/trainers’ beliefs on objectives of English language

teaching

School Teachers Teacher trainers

Item N M SD N M SD
Q5-3 369 1.42 .676 Q5-3 60 1.38 .580
Q5-1 361 1.61 .750 Q5-1 54 1.65 .765
Q5-4 362 1.62 .731 Q5-2 55 1.70 .733
Q5-2 338 1.85 .819 Q5-4 54 1.79 .744
Q5-6 308 1.99 .937 Q5-5 55 1.97 .647
Q5-5 316 2.02 .863 Q5-6 49 2.00 .803
Note: N= Number; M=Mean ranging between 0.00 and 5.00.; SD=Standard deviation

It is noticeable that school teachers showed a clear preference for general language
learning objectives: to develop students’ long-lasting enthusiasm for learning, good
learning habits and self-confidence in learning English well (Q5-3); to let students
experience the learning process, acquire the learning methods of scientific research and
promote awareness of cooperation (Q5-1) and help students acquire a proficiency of
English language(Q5-4), which are placed in a key position by school teachers (M.1.42;
M1.61 and M1.62). It could be interpreted that school teachers still considered language
teaching as their important aims to be achieved. This result is related to many factors in
the current situation of language teaching in China. First, language knowledge and
language skills are two of five objectives in English education contained in the new
English curriculum. They are the core parts in linguistic competence development. The

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acquisition of English can help students use the language for practical purposes for their
future needs. A good command of English may bring good luck to students like entering
good universities, finding a good job, going abroad, getting M.A or Ph.D. degree etc.
The acquisition of a foreign language and the purpose of the language education in
China can be perceived as largely being pragmatic-oriented in the first place.

Second, the examination does not include much culture content (see section 5.7) and
teachers were directed by what is going be tested is what should be taught; and last
teachers were under the heavy pressure of students’ entrance rate to the universities.

This finding also indicates from a different angle that teachers have received the new
curriculum training and they were familiar with language teaching objectives designated
in the new curriculum and they have realized that more attention should be placed on
students’ learning process; on students’ interest in learning English, which was stressed
in the new curriculum and to a certain extent influenced teachers’ concepts. Language
teaching in cultural dimensional objectives (Q5-2.-6,-5) were ranked high with mean
scores (M. 1.85, 1.99 and 2.02) showing that culture teaching was less important than
language teaching though they expressed their interest in teaching culture (See 5.2.1).

Teacher trainers also put general language teaching objective Q5-3 and Q5-1 in the first
two places (M.1.38, M 1.65) but they placed cultural teaching objectives (Q5-2,) in the
middle showing that they were more aware of the importance of culture teaching than
school teachers. This might be due to the reason that teacher trainers have less practical
pressure of examination than school teachers do. Teacher trainers also consider that
language proficiency is more important because this will enable students to meet the
needs in their future work and life.

It is interesting to discover that both school teachers and teacher trainers put language

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teaching objectives in cultural dimension (Q5-6-5) at the last two places which were
borrowed from the CULTNET. These two objectives are about promoting students
familiarity with the foreign culture and developing a better understanding of their own
identity and culture (M.1.97, M.2.00). These findings possibly indicated that their
understandings of culture teaching haven’t reached that high level and how to achieve
this goal remains uncertain. And this also suggests that both teachers and teacher trainers
need conceptual and practical training on cultural dimension teaching.

These findings show that teachers/trainers perceive the objectives of English language
education more in terms of general language learning objectives: to promote students’
motivation and sustain their interest in English learning; to develop their confidence in
learning a language, which is addressed in the new curriculum as one of the five
objectives (attitude and empathy) and should be considered the first aim to work for
(English curriculum, 2001). The new curriculum proposes that language learning is
considered to be an essential part of secondary education for all students. One of the
principal justifications for this is that language learning is a beneficial experience and
influence on students’ development, in preparing them for a living in future.

The language learning objective regarding the language competence is put in the next
important position to general language objectives. This also reflects the new change in
the general education reform. The language learning objectives used to put language
proficiency in the first place but now place students in the centre of language learning,
caring more about their emotions and attitudes in learning process. Regarding cultural
learning objectives, teachers rank them after general language objectives and language
learning objectives. I think this is not surprising since it is the first time to include
‘cultural awareness’ into the curriculum. It must take time for teachers to digest these
new ideas and also indicate that they need professional training /help in understanding
the cultural dimension in language teaching. It is natural for teachers to rank in this way

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because they are asked to prioritise all the objectives of English language teaching. In
order to further investigate teachers’ perceptions of objectives of cultural teaching, they
are asked to rank 11 possible cultural teaching objectives in order of importance, which
will be discussed below.

5.2.3 Teachers’ perception of objectives of cultural teaching (Q6)

In the previous section, teachers are asked to identify the aims of English teaching. I also
want to go beyond the question of general aims and further investigate teachers’
perceptions of their understanding of cultural teaching in more detail. A list of 11
objectives is suggested within the cultural dimension in which teachers are invited to
indicate ones which best represent their opinion. The first seven objectives are borrowed
from the CULTNET and the last four are taken from the curriculum (See questionnaire
Q6). The scale ranges from ‘very important, important, undecided, and less important to
not important’. The list of 11 cultural teaching objectives appears in the questionnaire in
random order. The table below has been rearranged here according to four aspects:
general objectives, skills dimension; the knowledge dimension and the attitudinal
dimension. The analysis will follow the four dimensions.

Table 5.7 Culture teaching objectives in four dimensions

General objectives of cultural teaching

Q6h Make language teaching more interesting and motivating.
Q6i Widen students’ horizons on the world.
Skills dimension
Q6f Promote increased understanding of students’ own culture.
Q6g Promote the ability to handle intercultural contact situations.
Q6j Promote students’ ability to evaluate and their sensitivity to different cultures.
Q6k Promote students’ awareness of similarities and differences of English speaking

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 countries.
Knowledge dimension
Q6a Provide information about the history, geography and political system of the
foreign culture(s).
Q6b Provide information about daily life and routines
Q6c Provide information about shared values and beliefs.
Q6d Provide experiences with a rich variety of cultural expressions (literature,
music, theatre, film, etc.).
Altitudinal dimension
Q6e Develop attitudes of acceptance and tolerance towards other peoples and
cultures.

Table 5.8 The result of Culture teaching objectives in four dimensions

School Teachers Teacher trainers

N M SD N M SD
Q6-h 384 1.63 .744 Q6-h 61 1.59 .588
.648
Q6-i 386 1.65 .802 Q6-i 61 1.72 .609
Q6-f 383 1.75 .870 Q6-g 60 1.72 .640
.805
Q6-g 383 1.82 .913 Q6-f 60 1.73 .733
Q6-b 388 1.88 .945 Q6-d 61 1.85 .792
.941
Q6-k 384 2.07 .935 Q6-k 61 1.89 .733
Q6-j 382 2.13 .954 Q6-e 59 1.90 .759
1.045
Q6-e 383 2.16 Q6-b 60 1.92 .829
Q6-d 386 2.17 Q6-j 61 1.97 .795
Q6-a 387 2.36 Q6-a 59 1.97 .694
Q6-c 384 2.38 Q6-c 61 2.03 .802
Total 389 Total 63
Note: N= Number; M=Mean ranging between 0.00 and 5.00.; SD=Standard deviation

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Table 8 shows the results of teachers’ and teacher trainers’ perceptions of culture
teaching objectives in English language education. Mean scores range between
0.00-5.00.

It is interesting to discover that both school teachers and teacher trainers shared very
similar understanding about culture teaching objectives. They both chose item h, i, f, and
g as the major objectives of culture teaching and ranked them on the top of the list .It can
be seen that a clear tendency was given to the general objectives of culture teaching
(Q6-h, i) as they did in defining general objectives of language teaching shown in the
previous section. They believe that the purpose of culture teaching can make language
teaching more interesting and motivating and culture teaching can widen students’
horizon on the world supported by school teachers (M. 1.63 ; M.1.65) and by teacher
trainers (M.1.59; M.1.72) respectively. In their opinions, a cultural dimension could
ensure great effectiveness of language learning. To bring students to a foreign language
and its culture is to open up a pass way for them to the outside world which they are
fascinated about.

As for skill dimension of culture teaching, there are four regrouped skills related to
culture teaching seen from the Table 7. It can be seen that school teachers and teacher
trainers believed that the purpose of culture teaching is to promote the understanding of
students’ own culture (Q6-f) and to promote students’ ability to handle intercultural
contact situations (Q6-g), which were ranked nearly at the same place. This shows that
teachers/trainers are aware that to help students understand their own culture, to give
them something of their own cultural identity through the teaching of English are what
they aim to achieve in language teaching. Surprisingly, teachers/trainers put ‘promote
the ability to handle intercultural contact situations’ on their second priority of skills
development. The result surprises me because this idea ‘intercultural’ is quite new in
secondary language education and also because students don’t have more chances for

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intercultural contacts through English (although the multi-ethnic nature of the region
could be an opportuntity). Therefore it may suggest that culture teaching could
contribute to communication, could help students learn to communicate with people
from different cultural background in future if they have opportunities for well-equipped
preparation in their language education. Another interesting finding is that school
teachers and teacher trainers give the same ranking of the objective of promoting
students’ awareness of similarities and differences of English speaking countries (Q6-k)
in the middle (M.2.07; M 1.89), which is clearly designated in the new curriculum. But
they held different views about promoting students’ ability to be sensitive to different
cultures’. School teachers placed this objective in higher position than teacher trainers
did. To raise students’ awareness to differentiate what we have and what we don’t have
through English learning by comparison, to enable students to be sensitive to different
cultures, in teachers’ opinions, are fairly important.

Regarding the knowledge dimension, school teachers put a priority on ‘provide

information of daily life and routines’ higher (Q6-b, M 1.88) while teacher trainers
believed that ‘to provide experiences with a rich variety of cultural expressions
(literature, music, theatre and film etc.)’(Q6-d, M1.85) is more important. The former is
focusing on small c while the latter is on big C culture. The implication of this result
could be in three aspects. First, this part of culture teachers may be familiar with and
they may feel confident to teach. Second, teachers would possibly link cultural
information of daily life with something ‘close to students’ life’, ‘something students
may be interested in’, ‘something which may be within student’s cognitive domain’
expressed by them in the section (5.3) when asked to define what culture is. Third, the
contents concerning small c culture appear more often than big C culture in the textbook
which suggests the knowledge of small c culture could be possibly used more in daily
communication with people of different cultures, especially in secondary language
education. However, teacher trainers still think literature, music etc are the channels to

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learn culture in language teaching. This also implies that there is a disconnection
between teacher training course and teachers practice in the classroom. It also indicates
that teacher trainers themselves lack the training on the new curriculum and there are
many changes of teaching concepts they are not very clear about.

It is surprising to discover that both school teachers and teacher trainers put Q6-a and
Q6-c at the bottom of the list concerning information about the history, geography
political system and values and beliefs. This suggests that teachers are not very
interested in teaching the big C culture about foreign history and geography. This
ranking is very interesting if looking at the definitions of culture in section 5.3 where
teachers put history and geography quite high next to daily life and customs. Here when
they are asked to define the objective in terms of culture teaching, they seem to give less
support to it. It shows clearly that the knowledge they favour is ‘providing information
about daily life and routines’ rather more than big C culture, implying the objectives
should be linked to the development of students’ ability of communication.

The knowledge of ‘providing shared values and beliefs’ is placed in the last among 11
culture teaching objectives, which is justified by the internal validation of the data when
they are asked to define their understanding of the culture in section 5.3 and the topic of
beliefs and values are less suggested by teachers. I am not sure about the reason why
teachers/trainers don’t support this objective and it is hard to speculate either, and this
will be a topic to be investigated in future.

As far as the attitudinal dimension is concerned (Q6-e), teachers/trainers don’t seem to

strongly support this objective (M.2.16; M. 1.90), and it is put in the eighth and seventh
place by teachers /trainers. The possible reasons might be, first, they are not sure about
the terms ‘tolerance’ and ‘acceptance’ in defining the objectives of cultural teaching,
why to tolerate and what to tolerate and accept may confuse them. Second, this attitude

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is considered as the foundation of intercultural competence in language teaching aims, to
develop learners as intercultural speakers or mediators (Byram, 2002), and this seems
too far from their understanding of cultural teaching. This finding gives me more to
think about language teaching aims in China, and I will discuss this in more detail
below.

In summary, in this section I have looked at the teachers’ perceptions of cultural

teaching objectives and notice that the broad agreement teachers reach is inclined to
emphasize the overall objectives of cultural teaching. Major concerns are centred on
students and purpose of teaching culture understood by teachers/trainers is to raise and
maintain learners’ lasting interest and motivation in language education and to widen
their world view through the language the students are learning. It is encouraging that
the skills dimension are better supported than knowledge dimension by teachers, which
gives me a hint of conceptualization changing from the traditionally knowledge-based,
cultural information-input to skills-oriented theoretically. It also leaves me with some
thinking about cultural teaching objectives set in curriculum for the secondary education
and teacher training programme development in this aspect i.e. that there seems to be
some disparity between the two. This is an issue to which I will return in the concluding
chapter when I discuss a possible action plan for training.

5.2.4 Analysis of different groups of teachers’ beliefs about language and

culture teaching
The analysis of teachers’ beliefs on language and culture teaching so far in previous
sections has been done by considering the school teachers as one group with the intention
of obtaining a whole picture of their thinking related to language and culture teaching in
Xinjiang. Now in this section, I want to know whether there is a difference among three
groups concerning language and culture teaching objectives. As it was mentioned in
methodology chapter, the sample was chosen from three groups of teachers who are

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teaching in city schools, region schools and village schools. The purpose of this is (1) to
cover wider areas in order to be as much representative as possible; (2) to see if there are
any differences in their beliefs influenced by the locality where they are teaching. To test
the three different group variables, the One Way-Anova analysis will be used. The
analysis of variance (ANOVA) is used to compare two or more means in order to
estimate the significance of the differences between them. ANOVA does this by
comparing the variance within samples and between samples. The advantage of
employing ANOVA is that it allows for the simultaneous comparison of more than two
conditions (sets of means). The means and standard deviations of each group and as well
as analysis of variance summarized will be presented in Table 9 and Table 10.

Table 5.9 Means and standard deviations for three groups of language/culture teaching
objectives

N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error

Q5 city 169 1.7730 .57461 .04420

region 121 1.7485 .50688 .04608
village 98 1.6772 .51701 .05223
Total 388 1.7412 .53990 .02741
Q6 city 151 1.9636 .56811 .04623
region 120 2.0675 .62159 .05674
village 99 2.0129 .59084 .05938
Total 370 2.0105 .59201 .03078

The above table displayed descriptive statistics for each group: teachers in city, region
and village schools and for the results of Q5 and Q6 concerning the language and culture
teaching objectives. The means showed that the average values in Q5 (city 1.77; region
1.74 and village 1.67 ) are very close and in Q6 (city 1.96, region 2.06 and village 2.01)
and there were no significant difference between them..

Table 5.10 ANOVA results of three groups on Q5 and Q6

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 Sum of Squares df Mean F Sig.
Square
Q5 Between .578 2 .289 .992 .372
Groups
Within 112.228 385 .292
Groups
Total 112.806 387
Q6 Between .722 2 .361 1.031 .358
Groups
Within 128.602 367 .350
Groups
Total 129.325 369

The results of the analysis are presented in an ANOVA table. The total variation is
partitioned into two components---between groups and within groups. The variation of
the group means around the overall mean in Q5 between groups and within groups
are.289 and.292.while in Q6 the means are.361 and.350 respectively. It shows there is
no significant difference.

Table 5.11 Multiple Comparisons of three groups on Q 5 and Q 6

Mean DifferenceStd. Error Sig.

(I-J)
Dependent Variable (I) GROUP (J) GROUP
Q5 city region .0245 .06430 .930
village .0958 .06855 .378
region City -.0245 .06430 .930
village .0713 .07337 .624
village City -.0958 .06855 .378
region -.0713 .07337 .624

Q6 city region -.1039 .07239 .358

village -.0493 .07655 .813
region City .1039 .07239 .358
village .0546 .08037 .794
village City .0493 .07655 .813
region -.0546 .08037 .794

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The result shows that the figures of significance among three groups of teachers are
higher than .05 indicating that there is no significant difference concerning their
understanding of objectives of language and culture teaching. Thus I may conclude that
teachers have the same views wherever they teach. The geographical location doesn’t
affect their views on cultural teaching in language classroom. This suggests that there is
no need for training to be different in different regions. This will be further talked about
in a proposed action plan on teachers’ training in Chapter 6.

5.3 Analysis of the teachers’ understanding of ‘Culture’ (Q3)

Having examined teachers’ perceptions of language and culture teaching objectives, I

can see that teachers have strongly supported the general objectives in language and
culture teaching showing their perceptions in a broader scope. In their understanding, to
teach culture is to enhance students’ interest and motivation to learn language well; to
promote their language ability in order to meet the needs in their future life and work. I
want to know further how teachers understand the concept of culture and especially how
they interpret the concept of culture.

The teachers were given an open-ended question by asking ‘Which part of the culture(s),
do you think, it is most interesting in teaching about English language countries, in other
words, how do you perceive the concept of culture?’ This open-ended question appeared
at the very beginning of the questionnaire with an intention to invite them to express
their current understanding of ‘culture’ with little influence of this research as they
moved on with the questionnaire. They were expected to voice their views freely and
openly.

Since it is an open-ended question, the response rate to this question is my major concern.
Among 400 informants of school teachers, 341 informants answered it occupying the

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percentage of 85% among the total. There are 42 teacher trainers out of 63 in all who
answered this question. The answer rate is 67%. Both rates of 85% from schoolteachers
and 67% from teacher trainers to this open-ended question are very satisfactory and this
may enable me to seek for more information or understanding from their responses to
this question. One thing must be made clear that these two response rates refer to all
answers completed, including either irrelevant answers or answers like ‘I don’t know, or
I am not sure’ as well. The remaining percentage of 15% schoolteachers and 33%
teacher trainers are missing data referring to those who have not produced a single word
on the space. The possible reason will be discussed later.

To analyze question three, it is important to elicit those school teachers’ open-ended

definition of culture. I read all definitions of ‘culture’ carefully and noticed that the
responses cover a wide enough range of cultural aspects to include almost all aspect of
the life of a people (see Appendix 4). Under this circumstance, I thought it is better for
me to group the similar phrases or words of their answers together into certain categories
expecting to get a general impression of teachers’ understanding of cultural dimension in
their extensive answers; to see if there is any common ground in their views; to use this
classification as a means of quantifying the responses for easy analytic references later.
Here I am not suggesting that the concept of culture can be divided into a number of
categories on a theoretical level. The classification is simply an operational instrument
enabling me to get an overview of some important dimensions with which I am dealing.
Thus each definition can be allocated into a number of categories in order to present the
richness of the data; rather than a reduction into one category, which would destroy the
value of this kind of qualitative data (Byram & Risager, 1999). Based on respondents’
answers I worked out nine categories all together (see below):

Table 5.12 Categorization of Chinese teachers’ definitions of ‘culture’

1.culture understood as people’s way of life or habits---their daily life, life style,

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 living conditions, routines, people’s hobby, weather and so on;
Schoolteachers 112/15.2% trainers 11/9.9%
2. culture understood as tradition, folklore and customs----social customs/habits,
local conditions & customs and morals of people, communicative rite, social protocol,
social convention, popular practice, culture customs and so on;
Schoolteachers 215/29.1% trainers 25/22.4%
3. culture understood as history, geography, -----all cultural activities in human
society, history of characters/words, proverbs, idiomatic usages, slang, great
/famous men and so on;
Schoolteachers 169/22.9% trainers 28/25%
4. culture understood as products of all kinds-----literature, art, music, architecture,
films and so on;
Schoolteachers 31/4.2% trainers 14/12.5%
5. culture understood as values, beliefs and behaviour----behaviour patterns, ways of
talking/expressing, interpersonal relationship, the ways one gets along with others and
conduct oneself in society, religious belief and so on;
Schoolteachers 9/2.1% trainers 5/4.5%
6. culture understood as education -----British /American education
Schoolteachers 52/7.1% trainers 3/2.6%
7. culture understood as political and economic systems
Schoolteachers 48/6.5% trainers 9/8%
8. culture understood as science, technology and environment
Schoolteachers 12/1.6% trainers 1/0.9%
9. others------irrelevant answers or other uncertain ones
Schoolteachers 90/12.2% trainers 21/18.7
Total 738 for schoolteachers 112 for teacher trainers

Each answer from informants is attributed to one or more of these categories and, in this

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way, there is a corpus of 738 definitions from the school teachers, 112 from the teacher
trainers. The figures are total responses for each category. The percentage figures are
percentages of the total responses in all categories 1-9 and I therefore describe the data
according to 9 categories statistically on one hand, and on the other, in the discussion of
the categories, I use direct quotes from the respondents if needed, since I have their
written text to work from. I have attempted, as far as possible, to use the words of the
respondents (or careful translation) in the discussion rather than trying to interpret
underlying intentions.

It is evident from the above Table 12 that both school teachers and teacher trainers have
understood culture mainly as traditions and customs (29.1% and 22.4%) in category 2.
In their perceptions , traditions and customs include in their written texts are as follows:
‘social customs and habits’ ;
‘local conditions and customs and morals of the people’’
‘table manners’; ‘communicative rite ’;‘social protocol’;
‘social convention’; ‘popular practice’; ‘cultural customs’;
It can be observed that those Chinese expressions are in four characters, which are
commonly used together when the concept of ‘culture’ is talked about. Those are social
and cultural outcomes settled in the process of development of a nation (R35) (R35: R
stands for respondent and 35 refers to the number of the respondent) and they are
classics and essences of a nation’s historical development (R68).

History and geography 22% and 25% are in category (3), which holds relatively higher
percentages next to category 2 traditions and customs. This shows in teachers’ mind that
‘culture’ may be associated with history, geography and political issues. As one of the
teachers put it:

I think, ‘culture’ is in broader sense; it includes history, geography, politics, and customs

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and the morals of people. (R74)

It can be seen that ‘history and geography’ are put first in relation with other aspects
mentioned indicating their understanding that to know a culture of a country is first to
know the geographical shape of this country and its history , especially ‘ ’ as
some teachers say, which means ‘history of all cultural activities in human society’.
Apart from this they also mention ‘ ’ which means ‘history of words or language’
like proverbs, idioms and slang which have cultural connotations.

Their understanding of culture as daily life, living habits (1) is also presented by these
two groups 15.2% and 9.9%. Some specific words related to daily life are used by
teachers, for example, Again this four-word combination of
set-phrase in Chinese language linked to daily life is idiomatic usage to show their
perception of culture as part of people’s way of life, habits and customs of daily life and
trifling matters of every day life and so on.

In category 4, the teacher trainers have a view of culture, which is more oriented toward
literature, art and music (12.5%) than school teachers have (4.2%). This may be because
as mentioned before (see Table 1), 83.5% school teachers don’t have B.A degree
indicating these teachers were graduates from the adult colleges rather than universities.
In China adult colleges, especially the teacher training colleges don’t offer a literature
course for two-year students and even some teacher training colleges do offer literature
courses. Thus it is reasonable for school teachers not to define culture as literature and
art while teacher trainers understand it in the way they were taught through literature as a
major channel to get to know the foreign cultures when they were in universities.

From the category 5, it is surprising to find that none of teacher trainers understand
culture as values, beliefs and behaviours and school teachers give little weighting:

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1.2% only. The real reason behind this result, why both groups don’t define culture as
the norms and values and social behaviours, is not certain. Perhaps it is because most
Chinese do not have beliefs apart from in the communist party or it is because Chinese
people have decreasing beliefs in communist party in terms of corruption, bribery, etc.
They think the relevant cultural knowledge of the target language they are teaching
should be linked with of history, geography, traditions, customs etc. They don’t reach
that deeper understanding of culture as values, norms and people’s behaviours, which
are the deepest part of culture (Prosser, 1978). It may indicate that the concepts of
social norms, beliefs and values are too abstract to understand if they are not well
trained in this respect. Or it may be possibly speculated that they are not clear about
what purpose of acquiring a foreign language is, for examinations, or for
communication. If they think in terms of communication, they don’t seem to
understand what role values, norms and social behaviours play in the communication.
In order to go into more depth to answer such questions, it would be necessary to carry
out in-depth interviews. This was not possible in this research, as explained in Chapter
4, and it is an issue for future research.

There are some limited numbers of respondents from both school teachers 7.1% and
teacher trainers 2.6% who understand culture as education system in English-speaking
countries. Statistically it shows that teachers’ perception of culture in terms of education
is not well presented in this way. The educational system and professional or school life
in English-speaking countries in very few teacher’ views, should be a part of culture in
the target language they are teaching, while teacher trainers don’t define culture much in
this respect. I wonder what may be the reason since this part of cultural knowledge is
included in the course of ‘Brief Introduction to Britain and America’, in which there is a
chapter about British and American education system. I may say they should be familiar
with the concept of culture in terms of education. A small number of teachers understand
this possibly because the concepts of culture the teachers have are still affected by the

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conventional way of understanding of culture as traditions and customs etc.

As for understanding culture as political system and economy, both groups of school
teachers and teacher trainers give a quite low percentage 6.5% and 8%. This result
surprises me because this part of knowledge as mentioned before is also included in the
course of ‘Introduction to Britain and America’ offered to pre-service or in-service
student teachers at college level. Yet they don’t define this as a part of culture, which
could be due to the possibility that the school teachers may think ‘culture’ is more
related to the traditions and history evolved or passed down from generation to
generation while politics and economy are more contemporary focused issues to deal
with. Or it might imply that the courses on teacher training offered by colleges at the
present don’t help teachers much in terms of acquisition of cultural knowledge. Teacher
trainers are not sure what school teachers need since the materials of English speaking
countries are compiled in the textbooks which they have to finish during the course
lecture. It seems that there is a kind of disconnection between the training course the
teacher education colleges offered and what the school teachers need in their practical
teaching.

The last but one category 8 is about science, technology and environment which both
groups give little attention to as part of their understanding of culture: (1.6% and 0.9%).
It is not surprising because this part of culture is not within traditional concepts of
understanding culture among Chinese people. Furthermore this part of cultural
information or cultural knowledge doesn’t appear in the textbooks. It is not likely to
make any connection for teachers with ‘culture’ in this aspect. .

The last category 9 is grouped as ‘others’ referring irrelevant and uncertain answers
which I will discuss later.

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So far I could say the common ground of cultural concept the teachers have are more
focused on traditions, folklore and customs; history and geography and people’s daily
life. This could be due to the fact as I mentioned before that nearly all universities or
colleges offer a course named ‘Brief Introduction to Britain and America’ through which
the cultural knowledge regarding history and geography, traditions of major festivals,
people’s way of living, daily practice, weather, political system of the English-speaking
countries, Britain and America in particular, are introduced to make students familiar
with this factual knowledge as cultural background information. So I can see that
teachers’ understandings of culture might be based on and reflected by the textbook
materials and also influenced by the Chinese way of defining culture in
four-character-set-phrases. As for norms and values, perhaps they think they are in more
abstract sense and feel them difficult to define. Cultural products like literature, arts and
music are so artistic-oriented that they may not be able to understand the complex
concept of culture in this direction.

Apart from this analysis of 8 categories, I want to present some definitions given by a
few teachers independently which are not easy to put in any category. These definitions
are so insightful, so profound in understanding culture. Though there are only a very few
teachers who understand the culture in such an interesting and nuanced way and thus
they can’t represent the majority of teachers’ perceptions, they do step towards
integration of language and culture in language education.
As one teacher put it:
Culture is something like making bread with butter in. It is named as butter Bread. If
butter is spread on the top of bread, it is not butter bread.
Another teacher said:
Culture and language are twins, look very much like each other. People can’t easily
distinguish who is who.
I am so impressed by these definitions which are simple in diction but profound in

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meaning. After all, the definitions and understanding of the culture provided by the
majority of teachers still remain quite superficial and imply that there has been very little
professional training on cultural teaching and discussion of what culture is. When
teachers are asked to define the concept of culture they must find it difficult to do it or
even some of them define it in ways which are quite irrelevant to the question. I will
illustrate this in the following part.

As mentioned previously, the last category 9 refers to irrelevant and uncertain answers
regarding defining concept of ‘culture’. I think it is very necessary to deal with this
category because it hints at some potential problems in teachers’ understanding of
culture. Teachers are asked ‘how do you understand the concept of ‘culture’, they gave
answers like:
1. I think, it is important to enhance and strengthen students’ language competence in
English class (R30).
2. The big problem for students now is to acquire grammar knowledge. English, I think,
a foreign language which students should learn is its structure, namely grammar. I don’t
like exam-driven education. For my students, being able to use it and communicate with
people is enough. (R37).
3 First, we should develop students’ lasting interesting in learning, good learning habit
and confidence. Let them experience the joy of learning English (R43).
….
Statement 1 is talking about the development of students’ linguistic competence not the
understanding of the culture; statement 2 is mentioning the importance of mastering
grammar, the sentence structure, still focused on the form rather than meaning. When
they say ‘Being able to use the language and communicate with people is enough’, this
implies what they teach now in language classroom is enough, no more than that. The
underlying meaning tells me they do not understand why they are asked to define the
culture if their students can talk to people and can use it with no grammatical problems. I

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may argue that some students can speak grammatically correct English but
pragmatically improper in a certain context. The statement 3 is talking about motivating
students’ interest to learn English, to experience the joy of learning process which is
right but nothing to do with the definition of culture.

Those answers give me evidence that either they misunderstood the question or their
comprehension of culture is just like this. This group of irrelevant responses I quantified
as 32/3.5%, and though occupying a very small figure, it makes me think that it is
necessary to develop, together with teachers, a concept of culture which is appropriate
for language teaching, and this is an issue for the planning of training which I will
discuss in the final chapter.

I notice that some teachers directly express their uncertainty in terms of culture, for
example :
a) I have no idea about what is culture (R56).
b) I don’t know how to define it (R67).
c) It is too big to say it (R129).
Those short but very explicit utterances show that they have no idea about what culture
is or how to define it and they don’t know how to make such a big issue teachable in the
classroom. The feeling of uncertainty and puzzlement (in a, b and c statements) are
clearly expressed. The understanding of culture is really complex not only for teachers if
they have not trained in the handling of the concept; but also for teacher trainers.

The data show the uncertain answers teacher trainers gave are higher than those of
teachers, reaching 18.7% as opposed to 12.2%. It is arguable that if teacher trainers
themselves don’t know the basic concepts of culture, how they can offer training course
to school teachers. Similarly, if school teachers don’t know what culture is in general,
how they can develop students’ cultural awareness and cultural understanding in the

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integration of language teaching, how can they fulfil the objectives in the curriculum?
The implementation of the new concept of the curriculum in the classroom will become
an empty talk. The results urgently suggest that targeted training of teachers in terms of
understanding of culture be very necessary and important issue to deal with.

I can also sense a kind of dilemma teachers have under this new situation. Some teachers
mentioned testing and examining, which is so much the concern of teachers.
d) Why to teach culture in English since it is not tested (R121).
e) Cultural teaching doesn’t help my students to pass the university entrance
examination (R97)
f) Culture is very important in language learning. We are all getting to know this. Who
can or dare not follow ‘the baton of examination’ (R231)

This clearly indicates the examination-oriented education guides teachers’ concept of

pedagogy. They think what they teach must centre on final outcomes of learning: ‘pass
the university entrance examination’. If cultural contents or cultural knowledge are not
tested and can’t help students pass the examination, teachers don’t feel responsible to
teach them even though the majority of students 71.2 % are interested in learning culture
as shown in section 5.2.1. The students are said to have an interest in learning foreign
culture but are under the pressure to enter university; the majority of teachers 84.3% are
interested in teaching culture shown by the second question data but are under the
pressure to help students pass the entrance examination; interest vs. pressure become
contradictory. They feel it is really hard for them to decide what they should do in the
new situation and they can’t, even ‘dare not’, be deviated from the conducting baton of
examination.

This conflicting emotion is illustrated by one teacher’s utterance:

Cultural awareness is a new concept in the curriculum. But I don’t know how to do it in

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the classroom since culture is everything, and what is more, students will be opposed to
the idea of culture teaching if it is not tested. Why to ask for trouble (R23).
Obviously this teacher received the new curriculum training. She/he considers this as
something new (‘new concept’), which she/he may accept possibly. The word ‘but’
she/he used indicates the change of attitude from the positive acceptance to uncertainty.
She/he feels somewhat lost not to know how to teach cultural awareness in the
classroom since culture is everything. This indicates that it is a hard job for teachers to
deal with culture in any case and the implication I get is that they may need help in new
teaching approach, which is different from the traditional grammar teaching methods.

On the other hand, I can sense her/his hesitation again. Suppose she/he is willing to teach
cultures in the language teaching in order to raise students’ cultural awareness in
accordance with the requirements of the curriculum; she/he must take students’ attitudes
into the consideration. Do they like it or not if it is not tested in the examination? The
students may be opposed to the idea of culture teaching, (then why ask for trouble) so it
is safer to be back where they are.

From the analysis of teachers’ uncertainty of what culture is and their dilemma of how
culture is coped with, I want to speculate about those who didn’t complete this question
and I think it is necessary to take the missing values into the consideration. 15% school
teachers and 33% teacher trainers didn’t complete this question in the questionnaires. Of
course they are entitled not to answer it in the first place. Behind the missing data, one
plausible explanation for blank answers may be attributed to

1) either school teachers or teacher trainers of this group feel defining ‘culture’ is a real
tough job beyond their knowledge or they never think of this problem of what culture is
in the context of language teaching in their previous teaching experience; when they are
asked to define culture they think the better strategy is to leave this question blank rather

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than to give an explicit answer ‘I don’t know’.

2) This group of teachers may know so well what culture is that they don’t bother to
answer this rather complicated question in a short time, if they do, they may think
poorly-organized conceptual framework for culture in a short time may blur their
understanding of this big question. Then they decide to leave it unanswered.

No matter what kind of explanation there might be of these missing data, a sense of
uncertainty and lack of engagement with this question plus general expressions or
definitions provided by the teachers suggest that much remains to be done in terms of
developing operational definition of culture in the language teaching setting.

Thus from the category 9 I could also see that some teachers are still not sure about the
new dimension of culture teaching in the language teaching. They express, to a certain
extent, their uncertainty and dilemma of understanding what culture is and how to deal
with it in the classroom especially under the pressure of exam-driven situation in
Chinese foreign language context.

In order now to have a whole picture of teachers’ views of culture I will go back to the
same question again. As I mentioned at the beginning of this section, the question I ask
teachers ‘Which part of the culture(s), do you think, is most interesting in teaching about
English language countries, or how do you perceive the concept of culture?’, some
teachers answered the first part of the question and do not give the definitions of the
culture or the other way round. I have so far dealt with the definitions of culture provided
by teachers and now I want to further look at the same issue from different angle to see
teachers’ views on which part of culture is most interesting to teach in the English
classroom.

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With a careful reading of the answers, I notice that there is a widespread use of a word
‘culture’ with a modifier in front of it in their responses, for example, ‘world culture,
British culture, British & American culture, Western culture, Chinese culture, national
culture, regional culture, modern culture, advanced culture, religion culture, fashionable
culture’ etc which they may think interesting to teach. Among those broad descriptions,
the general impression I got is of the popularity of British and American culture
(Anglo-American culture), Western culture as well as Chinese culture (381 responses
52%).

Why British and American culture? This could be due to one or more factors. First, this
could have something to do with the language teachers are teaching as a target language
and then they think target culture(s) should be interesting to be taught. Second, there is a
widespread feeling among Chinese students that British and American English are purer,
more refined form of English (The BBC and VOA are highly recommended for students
to listen to for enhancing their listening comprehension). Third, the predominance of
TOEFL and IELTS examination in China may be the plausible explanation. There may
be a reflection of the fact in teachers’ minds that they may help students in a way if they
know about British and American culture whose English is being taught. In the case of
Western culture, I am not sure what teachers refer to, but in China setting, it is possible
they refer to American culture because there are lots of TV, radio programmes talking
about the Western food influence on youngsters, usually referring to American food,
which suggests an attractive marketing factor. Therefore I may say Western culture may
refer to the same thing as American culture.

Despite the tendency to teach Anglo-American culture, some say that Chinese traditional
culture should be taught as well. As one teacher put it:
Every nation has its own history and its own unique culture. We have our own culture
which has five thousand years’ long history. In order to understand other culture, we will

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have to know our culture better (R12).

The concept of ‘own /our’ and ‘other’ is stressed by the teacher. ‘Culture’ doesn’t have a
distinction between the good and the bad. Every nation has its own unique culture. This
‘uniqueness’ of the culture reflects a nation’s characters. The approach from our own
culture is implied to develop students’ awareness of their own cultural identity and
others; to put students in a position to reflect on their own culture and perceive and
understand it from the viewpoint of others. This is the ability to reflect on one’s own
culture through outsider perspectives, able to mediate between cultures to see
differences.

Similar perceptions are presented, though very limited number (29 out of 341
respondents 0.8%), and by teachers who say that the difference between Chinese culture
and Anglo-American culture is what should be taught in the English class:
In language teaching, to compare the differences of East and West is very important’,
one teacher says (R109).

Although only 0.8% teachers realized the importance of teaching cultural differences
between our own and target language culture, this does not necessarily mean it is not
important and we should ignore it. On the contrary, it means the new understanding of
cultural teaching in language education emerges and it is useful to think how we should
employ it in training as discussed in the final chapter. We have a saying in Chinese
‘single and small spark can start a prairie fire.’

The following statement makes the idea more directly but not clearly:
Only on precondition of understanding similarities and differences of other cultures by
contrast and comparison, we are enabled to know the target language more, to use it
flexibly and then reduce the cultural misunderstanding. Accepting others’ essence, we

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can make our country strong and powerful (R32).

The differences and similarities of other cultures could be understood by comparative

and contrastive perspective but from which culture, is not clear. It might mean
understanding of our own culture and cultures in which language is being taught and
learnt. Though not clearly expressed, it still suggests that teachers begin to be aware of
the importance in developing cultural awareness with which language can be used
‘flexibly’. In my understanding it may mean ‘appropriately’, particularly from the
perspective of involving comparisons between students’ culture and other cultures,
which I think, is a first starting step towards intercultural communication approach.

I noticed that some teachers wrote things like: ‘In terms of culture we should teach
something which students are interested in, something can sustain students’ interest;
something close to students’ life, something relevant to language knowledge contained
in each unit;’ etc. What is this ‘something’? What can activate students’ learning
interest or motivation and maintain their interest? What is close to their life? These
answers tell me that they have some ideas there in general but they don’t know exactly
what they are or what they should be in terms of culture teaching. Perhaps they refer to
four F’s (i.e., food, festivals, folklore and facts) and intend to interest and motivate
students, the possible motivational value (Schulz, 2005), which reflects the reality of
culture teaching in the classroom in China and which are indeed close to students’ daily
life. In the text book used by Grade 7, for example, Unit One ‘A School Day’; Unit Five
‘Healthy Food’, Unit Nine ‘Christmas and Spring festival’ are using cultural information
as content to teach language skills. Apart from this, what else do the teachers mean? I am
not very sure but there is further internal validation of the data from Q9 ‘Please prioritize
10 possible cultural topics out of 19 at the secondary school level’ , the top priority topic
they give is ‘daily life and work’ 87%. I will discuss it below.

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In summary, the interesting parts related to cultural teaching, in teacher’ views, are
focused on Anglo-American cultures in that the language is being learnt and taught.
Chinese traditional cultures with a long history should be interesting to be taught as well
by comparing and contrasting the differences with other cultures. Teachers also say that
something interesting or close to students’ life should be taught, which indicates
teachers’ concepts of this aspect is too general to demonstrate their true understanding in
cultural dimension. It hints that the teacher training programme should be developed in
this aspect to help teachers look at the language teaching with a new sight.

If Chinese teachers’ perceptions of culture are placed in the global context I am very
interested in discovering what it will be. I decided to compare the findings on teachers’
concept of culture with Danish and English teachers’ understanding of culture.

As mentioned in Chapter 4 section 4.3.1 Byram & Risager did an empirical study on
teachers’ definitions of culture in England and Demark between 1992 and 1994. There
were 653 teachers from Denmark and 212 teachers from England involved in this
investigation. The teachers were asked to present their understanding of the concept of
culture. All together they got 630 definitions from Denmark and 162 from England.
They classified the definitions into 4 groups shown below:
A. culture understood as people’s way of life or traditions----how people live in concrete
terms, their activities, and their way of living together and so on;
B. culture understood as the objective structures people live in, the social, political and
economic institutions for example;
C. culture understood as the norms or values characterizing people’s lives---the ideas
people have about their life , behaviour, mentality, consciousness and so on;
D. culture understood as valued products or artefacts: as artistic life and artistic products
of different kinds, for example literature, music, art and so on.
Their findings are shown below:

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Table 5.13. Categorization of Danish and England teachers’ definition of culture

Category Denmark Teachers (N/%) England Teachers (N/%)

A 470/31.9 78/45
B 444/30.1 40/23
C 258/17.5 44/25.4
D 303/20.5 19/11

For easy reference, the categorization of Chinese teachers’ definition of culture will be
shown again below:

Table 5.14. Percentage of Chinese teachers’ definition of culture

Categories School teachers (N/%) Teacher trainers (N/%)

1 112/15.2 11/9.9
2 215/29.1 25/22.4
3 169/22.9 28/25
4 31/4.2 14/12.5.
5 9/1.2
6 52/7.1 3/2.6
7 48/6.5 9/8
8 12/1.6 1/0.9
9 90/12.2 21/18.7
Total 738 112

Note: The numeral is used to indicate the categorization of Chinese teachers’ definition
of culture while letters are used to indicate English and Danish teachers in the following
comparison.

I categorize the definitions of culture into 9 groups as shown above while Byram and

234
Risager categorized into 4 groups. I recognize that the way of categorization I use and
the contents in each grid are more or less the same as Byram and Risager’s. Mine is more
detailed in 9 categories, for example, grid A and grid 1 in both findings is about people’s
way of life, life style etc. The figures reveal significant difference in teachers’ concepts
of culture in the three countries. Obviously Danish and England teachers understand
culture more oriented towards daily life, 31.9% of Danish teachers and 45% of England
teachers, which are much higher than 15.2% of Chinese teachers’ understanding in this
aspect. As for traditions and social structures in grid B and in grid 2, there is no
substantial difference in this aspect shown by 30% for Danish teachers, 23% for England
teachers and 29% for Chinese teachers. It suggests teachers from different teaching
contexts hold nearly the same understanding of culture as traditions, social customs
because this is a part of a nation’s heritage and an important part of culture which should
be taught in the language classroom.

If I continue to look at the results in category C and category 5 regarding norms, values
and behaviours etc, I notice that teachers in England have a view more towards this
direction than Danish teachers do: only very small percentage 1.2% from Chinese
teachers. This also shows perhaps there is belief crisis existing in China. Why is there a
big gap between European teachers’ concept and Chinese teachers’ in this respect?
Again this is a topic for further investigation.
In conclusion, this section deals with the data around one question but from two angles:
aspects of culture taught and definitions of culture given by teachers. It provides me with
extensive perceptions from teachers and teacher trainers. I could see the concepts of
culture which popped into teacher’ minds according to Table 14 are the following: first
traditions and customs, second history and geography, last the way of people’s life
which thus can be considered as leading concepts of their understanding. It is these
which first come to mind and which seem to guide the individual teacher’s thinking.

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With Danish and English teacher’ views, I can see from the Table 13 that way of
life/traditions and social structures are well represented, which shows uncontroversial
common understanding of culture is reached no matter it is West or East. Both Chinese
teachers and English and Danish teachers show little attention to the cultural products or
artefacts. The obvious findings lie in the difference of norms, values and people’s social
behaviours where Danish and English teachers demonstrate their understanding in this
aspect while Chinese teachers don’t seem to understand it at all. This leaves me an issue
for future research using interviews or similar methods which would allow me to probe
the reasons behind these differences in more depth.

It is important to point out that this part of definitions of culture is only one aspect of a
full understanding of culture. Another aspect of understanding shows that some Chinese
teachers think Anglo-American culture should be taught together with Chinese
traditional culture, while others focus on cultural differences of our own and other
cultures by comparative approach in order to reach better understanding of our own
through viewpoint of others. However, some teachers fail to define the culture or
misunderstand the question; some express their uncertainty and dilemma, and some feel
much confused to say this or that when they are asked to do so. I must admit that to
formulate the definitions of culture is absolutely difficult for teachers in a short time in a
coherent way especially when they lack of training on this aspect.
However, it is encouraging that teachers can present independent views on the concept
of culture. Though talk about culture teaching in language classroom still remains
superficial, still in the stage of teaching the cultural phenomena, I feel it really
significant to know how much understanding of culture teachers have in the setting of
language teaching.

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5.4 Possible topics in cultural teaching (Q9)

Having examined teachers’ definitions of culture, I can see that teachers understand
‘culture’ mainly as customs and traditions; as history of language (proverbs, idioms etc)
and as a daily life, which were discussed above. I am very much interested to look at
what part of culture or what culture topics teachers think should be touched upon in the
classroom.

I have an insight into what underlying conceptualizations teachers have. As it was

mentioned in previous section, the open-ended question of asking teachers to define their
understanding of ‘culture’ is placed at the beginning of the questionnaire in order to
invite teachers to voice their opinions as freely as they can. They may not be fully
conscious of this question because it is not their daily teaching practice. However, when
they are asked to make choices about what topics they will like to teach in language
classes, the issues will be more conscious and clear. Question nine asks teachers ‘What
part of culture associated with the English language you think should be taught at the
middle school levels’. 19 possible culture topics are suggested, which are borrowed from
the Byram and Risager project (Byram and Risager, 1999) for the purpose of comparison
in teachers’ preferences of culture topics in three countries. Some changes of topics were
made out of piloting experience, for example, ‘stereotype’ ‘ethnic relations, racism’
which were not included and topics ‘body language’ ‘values and beliefs’ ‘our own
culture and identity’ were added (see Chapter 4).
Teachers were asked to identify the ten most important ones they think should be taught
in the classroom. They were encouraged to give other topics if they wish, but few of
them offered their suggestions. At the same time they were asked to write one or two
sentences to tell us the reason why they identify their choices in brief. The following list
are the 10 most favourable topics teachers chose which will be presented by frequency
and percentage ranging from the highest percentage to lower one. See the Table 15
below. The complete list of 19 possible culture topics is included in the questionnaire.

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(see Questionnaire Q9).

Table 5.15. Possible culture topics

teachers Trainers
Daily life 339/87% School and education 54/88.1%
Festivals and customs 295/77% Festivals and customs 52/85.2%
School and education 300/78% Daily life 51/83.5%
Shopping, food and drink 282/73% Our own culture & 48/79.4%
Environmental issues 274/72% Shopping, food and drink 46/76%
Body language 273/72% Environmental issues 42/74%
Our own culture& identity 254/68% Values and beliefs 40/72.4%
Values and beliefs 242/64% Social and living 39/72.2%
Social &living conditions 240/63% Religious life & tradition 37/66.7%
Tourism and travel 234/61% Youth culture 36/64%

The 10 most favourable topics the teachers and trainers choose are surprisingly similar
except that teachers choose ‘body language’ and ‘tourism and travel’ while trainers think
‘religious life and tradition’ and ‘youth culture’ should be taught. This difference might
be caused by the understanding of the culture and by the books they are using. For
example, the ‘religious life and tradition’ is not included in the textbooks used by the
teachers but touched upon in the training textbooks. Apart from this, both teachers and
trainers share very similar ideas about the culture topics though the emphasis is a little
different. That is to say the order of their choices is placed differently. To be more exact,
they all put ‘daily life’; ‘festivals and customs’; ‘school life and education’ on the first
three topics of their choices but with different order. Teachers placed ‘daily life’ first
while trainers put it on the third place. This does not affect my discussion. My major
concern is what the 10 cultural topics they favour in their teaching and the result is clear.

They both think the topic of ‘environmental issues’ should be included, placed
somewhere in the middle of the list of topics indicating that the issue of protecting the

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environment where we are living is becoming a universal concern and students should
have some knowledge of this.

Interestingly the topic ‘body language’ is given relatively important emphasis by

teachers which gives me some hints that teachers are becoming aware that gestures,
expressions, body movements have messages to convey when people converse.
However, not all body language means the same thing in different culture. Different
peoples have different ways of making nonverbal communication. It is part of culture.
Therefore, body language, in teachers’ opinions, like verbal language, should be taught.
However, trainers don’t mention ‘body language’ but this doesn’t mean that this is not
important .I assume they might have taken it for granted to be included in the culture
teaching. Due to different position of teaching, trainers choose ‘youth culture’ as one of
the 10 topics.

It is also noticed that the topic of ‘values and beliefs’ is among the ten important ones.
But in the section where they were asked to define what culture is, they give less support
to this point (Schoolteachers 9/2.1% trainers 5/4.5%). The interpretation of this result
may be attributed to the consciousness aspect. They are more conscious about what is
happening in the classroom than to give definitions of culture, which is so abstract in
conceptualization.
It is also noticeable that topics like history, political system, literature and film, family
life, gender and roles are not included. This shows both teachers and trainers are not
interested in big C.

As mentioned before, similar research done by Byram and Risager (1999) investigated
English and Danish teachers on what aspects of culture they feel should be included in
foreign language teaching. They offered a list 20 themes of culture related. I want to see
what English and Danish teachers’ preferences of culture topics are and whether there is

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any common standpoint in European and Chinese teachers’ perceptions. Their choices of
culture topics and Chinese teachers’ will be presented in the rank order (see below).

Table 5.16 Possible culture topics or themes given in three countries

Chinese teachers English teachers Danish teachers

Daily life & routine Daily life & routine Social and living
Festivals and customs School and education Daily life & routine
School and education Shopping, food and drink School and education
Shopping food and drink Family life Family life
Environmental issues Youth culture Youth culture
Body language Festival sand customs Shopping food and drink
Our own culture and Geography and regions Ethnic relations and
Values and beliefs Social and living History

Social and living Tourism and travel Festivals and customs

Tourism and travel Working life and Political system

The table shows that there are some common views shared by three groups of teachers in
terms of culture topics which they are not interested in introducing into the classroom,
for example, ‘literature’ ‘film, theatre and art’ ‘religious life and traditions’. This implies
that all three groups of teachers give less attention to big ‘C’ culture and more support to
small ‘c’ culture. In addition to this, none of the group draws any attention to ‘gender
roles and relationships’ which might suggest sociological analysis.

There are some interesting differences among Chinese, English and Danish teachers.
Chinese teachers don’t include ‘family life’ and ‘youth culture’ in the 10 topics while
English and Danish teachers rank these two topics in the exact the same places among
the 10 topics. Apart from this, Chinese teachers consider ‘environmental issues’ and ‘our

240
own culture and identity’ as part of culture topics to teach while neither English nor
Danish teachers think as such.

It is also observed that Danish teachers put more emphasis on ‘history’ ‘ethnic relations
and racism’ and ‘social and living conditions’, and much less on ‘tourism and travel’ and
‘working life and employment’ which are not included in their first 10. By comparison,
English and Chinese teachers don’t include ‘history’ or ‘ethnic relations and racism’ in
the first 10 topics.

From the table above, it can be interpreted that foreign language teaching, in a global
context, bears more similarities than differences in terms of cultural teaching topics from
teachers’ point of views. The differences might result from different situations, for
example, ‘religious life’ ‘ethnic relations and racism’ are too politically sensitive in the
China context and different topics might also lead to different methods of teaching,
depending on learners’ age, language competence and other factors such as motivation
or degree of first-hand experience of other country and society. Nonetheless, I have got
some insight to what teachers’ understanding of culture topics.

5.5 Teaching techniques for culture teaching (Q11)

In the previous section, what culture topics Chinese teachers prefer to teach have been
investigated and comparison of Danish and English teachers’ with Chinese teachers’
preference has been made to help me understand what teachers thinking is through their
choices of culture teaching to realize the objectives of language and culture teaching. In
this section I want to find out what activities teachers employ in the classroom in. Q11
asks teachers to indicate for a number of possible language/cultural teaching activities
how often they practice them in the scale of ‘very often, often, sometimes, seldom and
never’. From these indicated possible teaching practices and activities I intend to

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discover (1) which cultural teaching activities teachers appear to prefer and to what
extent they prefer: teacher-centred or student-centred. What I mean by teacher-centred is
the teacher who decides on cultural activities or topics dealt with in the classroom.
Student-centred is when students start to choose what topics and activities they want to
learn or practice. 2) Whether teachers practice only teaching activities that target
cognitive objectives, or whether they also use activities that address the attitudinal or
skills dimensions of intercultural competence.

A list of possible cultural activities appeared in the questionnaire in random order but
here it will be presented in percentage with which they appear to be most often used.

Table 5.17 The activities from most often used to less often used presented below:

Act i vi t i es used by t eacher s

p 100
e
r 80
c 60
e
t 40
a 20
g
e 0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Most of t en used t o l ess of t en used

1. I teach culture in English class based on the textbook I am

368/92%
using.
2. I ask my students to recite some dialogues. 327/81.75%
3. I use audio tapes in my class and ask them to mime
291/72.75%
according to what they hear.
4. I focus my attention on some culture-loaded new words
290/72.5%
teaching
5. I tell my students what I heard or read about the foreign
284/71%
country or culture
6. I teach them some English songs or poems to let them
254/63.5%
experience the different cultures.

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 7. I ask my students to act out what they learn in terms of
212/53%
culture learning
8. I ask my students to compare their own cultures with
209/52.25%
foreign cultures.
9. I ask my students to discover the aspects of the foreign
192/48%
culture
11. I ask my students to participate in role-play activity in
179/44.8%
which people from different culture meet.
12. I download some pictures or cartoons having cultural
138/34.5%
images and let them discuss them.
13. I show them film videos and discuss what they watch. 115/28.75

I combine the activities ‘very often used’ and ‘often used’ together and the result clearly
shows that the technique teachers often used to teach culture is through the textbook
(368/92%) while teaching English. This is the situation in China where the textbook is
the law code for teachers to follow and examinations are taken from it (Wang, 2003).
This also means it could be assumed that it is the teachers who plan and decide what
should be taught and how fast they should move to next unit.

Asking students to recite some dialogues turns out to be the second very often used
technique (327/81.75%). This may be due to the fact there is no real language
circumstance to involve students to use the language they are learning. Therefore
memorization of short dialogues and some useful expressions can enable students to use
what they have got in mind and also are helpful for students to have good marks in an
examination. These two activities are obviously teacher-centred and address the
cognitive dimension in language education, which is still the main teaching approach in
Chinese classroom.

Audiotapes played in the classroom and students asked to mime what is heard
(291/72.75%) and teaching cultural-loaded vocabulary (290/72.5%) are comparatively
very often used activities to teach culture. This shows that to improve students’ listening
comprehension is considered as an important part in language teaching because listening

243
comprehension will be included in the test occupying 20% out of 100 scores in any
examinations in secondary level. This part of listening practice goes together with each
unit content. Teachers may sometimes use this listening activity on one hand to train
students’ listening ability and on the other hand to ask students to do role-play based on
their listening content. The intention may be to motivate students’ learning interest and
to involve more students in taking part in the classroom activities. Teaching
cultural-loaded vocabulary appeared in the text or in the dialogue through teacher’s
explanation, and illustrations with examples are employed showing that vocabulary
learning in the language is one of the ways to learn culture. Learning and memorizing
new words are seen to be the most difficult part for students to learn language. And how
to enlarge students’ vocabulary becomes teachers’ major concern in language teaching.
From this result it can be seen that they are still teacher-centred and cognitive oriented
though sometimes students are involved to do miming.

Some activities like telling students what teachers heard and read about the foreign
country or culture (284/71%) and others like using songs and poems to let students
experience different cultures (254/63.5%) are also often used because what they have
heard and read about foreign culture through other channels became one of sources for
students to know foreign cultures. Most teachers don’t have the first hand experience of
other cultures and have little chance to go abroad to experience foreign cultures
themselves. It can be imagined that they don’t have much to tell students and they don’t
have more time spent to teach something out of the textbook.

The activities of asking students to play cultural roles (212/53%), to ask students to
compare their own culture with foreign cultures (209/52.25), to discover the aspect of
the foreign culture (192/48%) and to describe cultural phenomena (190/47.5%) are
clearly less often used activities, which are more student-centred and skill-developed
approach. This again supports the fact that teacher-centred approaches are still more

244
common than student-centred ones which is possibly due to the reason that
student-centred autonomous learning has only recently been introduced into the schools
since the new curriculum started to be applied in pioneering schools in 2001 and widely
used in schools in 2005.

The last two activities mentioning additional cultural teaching materials like using
cultural images, (138/34.5%) film videos and multi-media (115/28.75%) used to teach
culture are not often employed. I may say that the current situation in teaching culture is
basically relying on the textbook in use. And teachers do not have easy access to
multi-media materials to teach cultures of English speaking countries owing to lack of
enough finance to buy video teaching materials.

The feeling I got from the result is that teachers are trying to find the balance between
the teacher-centred and student-centred teaching approach; knowledge-based instruction
and skill-oriented development in the English language teaching. They want to involve
students to participate in the classroom activity and they intend to develop students’
skills to use the language they are learning and discover the differences of our own
culture and foreign cultures, but it is the teacher who still controls the teaching process
and teaching content most of time in the classroom. As for the attitudinal dimension of
cultural teaching, it is not the focus of teachers’ practices in the classroom at the present
which suggests teachers’ beliefs in intercultural communication teaching is falling
behind their beliefs in language competence development.

Next I want to examine what activities the trainers most use in the classroom and if there
is any difference with teachers’ choices of activities often used in the classroom. The
same way is used to combine ‘very often used with often used’ and the result is shown as
follows:

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 Table 5.18 Comparison of activities used by teachers and trainers

act i vi t i es used by t eacher s and t r ai ner s

120
100
per cent age

80
t eacher s
60
t r ai ner s
40
20
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
f r equency of use

The table above shows clearly the same tendency towards the activities used by teachers
and trainers. The most often used activities are activity 1 using textbooks to teach
language/culture; activity 5 asking students to recite some dialogues and activity 6
teaching culture-loaded words, which reflect the reality of language teaching in my
region. Textbook is a main channel to learn language and culture. Recitation is one of the
ways to check learners’ mastering language knowledge. This finding further confirms
the current practice in teaching and learning language which has been dominated for a
long time in China.

The activity 10 ‘using pictures with cultural images’ and activity 12 ‘asking students to
act out what they learn’ in terms of culture learning are ranked the same indicating there
is not any difference between teachers and trainers by using these two activities. The
difference between teachers and trainers are particularly salient in activity 9, 11, and 4.
The activity 9 and 11 trainers use more film videos to teach culture and do more
comparison of differences between students’ own cultures with foreign cultures
implying college teachers are more free to use additional materials because of less tight
teaching tasks and they are more aware that the comparison of one’s own culture with

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others’ culture is one of the effective ways to learn culture. However, in activity 4 school
teachers involve students to do more role-play activity in which people from different
cultures meet. This is because students in schools are younger and more active while
students in colleges are adults and they are not willing to do activities which might show
them up before the class.

To sum up, in this section the cultural teaching practice teachers/trainers employ in the
classroom has been discussed. The findings show that the most frequently used practice
to teach culture in English class is through the textbooks. The other sources of cultural
teaching materials, like pictures and multi-media are less frequently used by teachers.
The textbook is still the source to provide either culture content or language knowledge
for teachers to teach. The activities could be centred on the textbook. The list of
activities practiced by teachers/trainers are most linked to teacher-centred and cognitive
dimension, aiming at achieving acquisition of language and culture knowledge more
than attitudinal and skills dimensions of intercultural competence. The traditional
language teaching approach ‘teach and listen’ and deep-rooted learning style of ‘read
and memorize’ could be felt in a certain way but at the same time I could also feel some
changes occurring in the classroom, for example the activity of role play preferred by
teachers. In general, looking at the activities teachers often practiced in the classroom
shown by mean scores, the frequency of activity practice in the classroom might reflect
teachers’ perceptions of language teaching and learning beliefs and understandings from
another aspect. In other words, what they believe in language teaching and learning
might influence their practice as I argued in Chapter 3 section 3.6.3. It is also true for
culture teaching and learning beliefs.

I have to point out that these findings discussed above are not as indication of extensive
culture teaching in every lesson. In the light of what is going to be discussed in the next
section regarding the balance between time devoted to language teaching and culture

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teaching. I can merely interpret this finding as a sign of teachers practicing some culture
teaching activities more often than other language teaching activities.

5.6 Teachers’ perceptions of time they devote to culture teaching (Q7

& Q8)

Before beginning to look at teachers’ perceptions of time devoted to culture teaching in

the classroom, it seems necessary to remind the reader what has already been discussed
and where the discussion has come to so as to link the previous sections with the present
one.

In the previous section teachers’ preferred activities in terms of culture teaching in the
classroom has been examined. And in section 5.4 what culture topics teachers think
should be taught in language classroom is analyzed. In order to better understand
teachers’ perceptions of the cultural dimension in language teaching teachers’ opinions
about how they perceive the objectives of English teaching and cultural teaching are
investigated in section 5.2.2 and section 5.2.3

The present section will then provide an analysis and interpretation of teaching time
teachers devote to the culture teaching in the language classroom (Q7); and whether they
are willing or unwilling to spend more or less time on culture teaching (Q8) and what the
reasons might be for this willingness or unwillingness (open-ended answers).
Information regarding these issues will, I hope, shed additional light on the way in which
they perceive the objectives of English teaching and, in particular, on the importance
they give to culture teaching.

In the questionnaire, teachers are asked ‘How is your teaching time distributed over
‘language teaching and ‘culture teaching’’? Teachers will decide the one which is best to

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present their practice in the classroom. The results will be presented by frequency and
percentage. See the table below.

Table 5.19 Distribution of teaching time over English teaching and cultural teaching

Q7 How is your teaching time distributed over F/P teachers F/P trainers
1) 100%language teaching - 0% culture 9/2.3% 0/0%
2) 80% language teaching - 20% culture 206/53.1% 34/55.74%
3) 60% language teaching - 40% culture 99/25.53% 18/29.51%
4) 40% language teaching - 60% culture 174/38% 2/3.28%
5) 20% language teaching - 80% culture 4/1.03% 0/0%
6) 100%integrationof language-and-culture 53/13.66% 7/11.48%
388/100% 61/100%
F=frequency P=percentage

The above Table 19 provides an overview of teachers/trainers’ perceptions of the

percentage of their teaching time they devoted to either language teaching or culture
teaching. It can be noticed that the majority of teachers/trainers dedicate more time to
language teaching than to culture teaching. 206/53.1% teachers and 34/55.74%trainers
tick the option 80% language teaching - 20% culture teaching. This finding shows both
teachers and trainers spent more time on language teaching than culture teaching
because 1) the EFL lessons in China are text-oriented and the contents of examination
are taken from the textbook focusing on language knowledge; 2) the acquisition of
English knowledge is still considered important and the proficiency of English is
decisive factor for jobs, study and promotion; 3) culture contents estimated in the exams
by teachers (315/82.68%) and trainers (49/77.8%) are about 20% (see section 5.7). So it
confirms what teachers said in relation to the objectives of their teaching, clearly for
language teaching rather than culture or skills teaching , which was discussed in section
5.2.3 of this chapter

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It is somewhat surprising that there are 174/38% teachers who give 60% time to culture
teaching. I may wonder whether this finding shows the true facts teachers are actually
doing in the classroom in terms of time distribution in language teaching, or whether
these are only their perceptions which may not correspond with the facts. With this
enquiry in mind, what I can do is to investigate teachers’ willingness and attitudes
towards whether they want to spend more time on ‘culture teaching’ or not. If they want
to devote more time on culture teaching, they are encouraged to give their brief reasons
and visa versa. The results will be shown in the following table by percentage and
frequency.

Table 5.20 Teachers’ degree of willingness to devote more time to culture teaching

Q8 Do you want to spend more time on F/P F/P

‘culture teaching’ during your English teachers Trainers
teaching
(1) Yes, very much so 53/ 13.55% 9/14.5%
(2) Yes, up to a certain extent 225/57.54% 46/74.2%
(3) No, not particularly 74/ 18.9% 1/1.6%
(4) No, not at all 5/ 1.28% 6/9.68
(5) No opinion 34/8.73% 0/0%
391/100% 62/100%
If you choose 1 or 2, please tell us why you want to spend more time on ‘culture
teaching’ , if you choose 3, 4 or 5, please tell us why you don’t want to spend more
time on ‘culture teaching’ ?
F=frequency P=percentage

The table shows a clear willingness of teachers/trainers to devote more teaching time to
culture teaching. If ‘yes, very much so’ and ‘up to certain extent’ group are combined

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together, there are more than 7/8 out of 10 teachers/trainers who express their
willingness to spend more time on culture teaching while 20.18% teachers and 11%
trainers don’t want to give more time to culture teaching and 8.73% teachers remain
neutral neither willing nor unwilling attitudes are expressed.

In order to find out why they are willing to dedicate more time to culture teaching or not
willing do so, in the open question, teachers are asked to mention any reasons for their
willingness or unwillingness (see Appendix 5). The analysis of reasons will be dealt with
in two parts; first I want to explore the reasons for positive attitudes of their willingness
and then unwillingness separately. In this part of data, teachers and trainers are taken as a
whole to see their general attitudes towards this issue. I again use letter ‘R’ stands for a
‘respondent’ either representing a teacher or a trainer.

When looking at the reasons teachers give again and again, trying to find out common
utterances or statements teachers wrote, I found their written texts are constructed
around some common themes which pertain to their willingness to devote teaching time
more to culture teaching. The general picture gradually emerges by frequent use of some
key words. In fact there is also a characteristic order which appears surprisingly often in
the material. Thus there can be seen a logical link of thoughts, which seem to indicate
their willingness to touch upon the cultural teaching. See the following expressions:
Interesting__helping___enriching___benefial___broadening____inseparable___develo
ping___ arousing___
These key words can be treated as a series of thematic structures for the majority of
teachers’ voices. Each key word is embedded in their written texts expressed by a large
number of teachers showing their attitudes towards this issue. Some typical examples
will be given to show how these key words are related to the specific theme.

1) Making students and classroom teaching interesting

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I can see that teachers’ primary willingness to spend more time in terms of culture
teaching is to enhance and motivate students’ interest in learning English in the first
place; to make language class more interesting; to teach culture out of individual
teacher’s own interest.
Thus there are three layers of the ‘interesting’ theme are expressed (the italics added by
the researcher).

Teaching culture is helpful to enhance students’ interest in learning English and to raise
their awareness of English learning (R187).

Language learning is boring. If culture teaching is added to certain extent, I notice that
it can make the language classroom teaching more interesting and vivid. (R 247)

Myself is interested in British culture all along (R56)

The chief reasons to spend more time are to enhance students’ interest and motivation
which is in line with their understanding the general objectives of language teaching and
culture teaching showed in section 5.2.2 and 5.2.3.

2) Helping students understand the language and culture better

Respondents say that teaching culture can help students understand the language better
they are learning; can help students to understand the cultural differences; can be
contributive to memorization of language points easily. Without the understanding of the
culture where a language is spoken, it is not easy for students to know the meaning
behind the language.

The reason to teach English is to get students to know not only language knowledge but
also culture knowledge of English speaking countries, which may help students
remember what they learnt easily (R311).

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It is helpful for students to know the differences. For example, some English words are
different from Chinese words in meaning. Some histories of festivals students are not
sure about. If only some words of their dictionary meaning are taught, it is very
superficial. Only by comparison of differences between cultures, can help students get to
know the language better (R234).

It is only on the precondition that students get to know something about cultural
knowledge, which then can help them understand why they learn this language and the
function of learning this language (R58).

3) Enriching and beneficial for both teachers and students

Some teachers say that the reasons they want to teach cultures of English speaking
countries are that it can enrich students’ knowledge of English language, especially the
knowledge beyond of the textbook because sometimes they like to supplement
additional materials concerning cultural information used in the English classes
(R80).

Students’ can learn more not only the English language itself but people’s way of life,
different customs and traditions, major festivals in other cultures etc. It is a kind of live
language not deaf-mute language we are teaching (R203).

In addition the process can be enriching for the teachers and not just the pupils:

The process of searching for cultural information is a process of learning for ourselves
(R12).
Some cultural knowledge we don’t know as teachers and we must consult some guide
books to make clear before we teach to our students (R45).

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It can also help them to improve and enrich their own teaching methods:

We have to think about how to use the additional materials in our class and in what way
to integrate with language teaching which can enable us to enrich our teaching
experience and improve our teaching methods (R341).

Therefore ‘culture teaching and learning is like taking self-advanced course of study’
‘(R 111) and ‘it can benefit teachers ourselves as well as students’(R3).

So the thematic structures of enriching cultural knowledge of students and teachers and
of being beneficial to learners and teachers in the process of language education are well
illustrated.

4) Broadening student’s views

They want to spend more time on cultural teaching because they think to learn a foreign
language is a way to broaden students’ horizon on the world:

Students’ thinking and views can be widened and their comprehensive ability of
language can be developed only they have some knowledge of culture where language
is learnt. (R116).
To acquire some knowledge of culture can broaden students’ view. Their interest in
learning English can be enhanced and in turn it can promote teaching of language
(R137).

Some teachers link this broadening view of the world with a better understanding of
one’s own country:

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The purpose of teaching language and culture is to let students have the whole world in
view and have their own country in mind ’ (R142).

This reason sheds additional light on their understanding the general objectives of
language teaching, which will broaden students’ horizon (see section 5.2.2).

5) Language and culture inseparable

The connection between language and culture becomes increasingly realized. Teachers
express their desire to dedicate more time to cultural teaching because language and
culture are inseparable, some teachers say. For example:

I always think language and culture can’t be separated, they complement each other
(R23).

Without knowing a country’s culture, it is difficult to learn this language well (R34).

Learning a country’s language, its culture must be learnt at the same time. Using the
language which students are learning to know the history and civilization of different
countries (R16).
Language and culture can not be separated. I want very much myself to teach language
and culture as water and milk well-blended (R265).

The metaphor used by the teacher encapsulates the views about the relationship of
language and culture in a particularly clear way.

6) Developing communicative competence and intercultural competence

Teachers realize that teaching English is for the purpose of using the language to
communicate with people from a different cultural background. The ability of

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communication is what they are willing to teach and invest time in. They see the
teaching of culture and the development of a broad view as a pre-condition for good
communication: Develop student’s open-mindedness and acceptance of other nations
and peoples; ability of tolerance, which enables them to adapt to future work and
learning (R5).

Only having some knowledge of culture, can students express or communicate with
people appropriately (R20).

To teach culture can promote students love of the language they are learning, can
develop their communicative competence (R165).

Not only develop students’ language ability but also intercultural competence. This is
what I am trying to do (R44).

Though very few teachers mentioned that a language teaching objective is to develop
students’ intercultural communication ability, the mere realization of importance of
developing students’ communicative or intercultural competence rather than knowledge
transmission is encouraging. It may lead to my thinking about the future training course
for teachers in this aspect which will be addressed in the section of action plan in the last
chapter.

7) Arousing cultural awareness

From further examination of their written texts, ‘sensitivity’, ‘cultural awareness’ and
‘new challenge’ appear with regard to willingness for culture teaching. Such as:

Learning a language is to know the cultural similarities and differences of others. We

should let our students be aware of these differences (R4).

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Be sensitive to different cultures is what we want to teach by comparison with our own
culture (R230).

Teachers may realize that comparison and contrast of different cultures is direct way of
developing students’ ‘cultural awareness’ to be sensitive to how we are different from
others in terms of cultures and visa versa.

The open attitude towards another culture is what they may try to develop in the
language classroom. Teachers say ‘Develop students’ ability to differentiate foreign
cultures and to be open to accept it ‘(R 165).

Arouse students’ cultural awareness and broaden their views can lay a foundation for
their possible going abroad to study’ (R123).

Cultural awareness is one of the objectives in language teaching and what proportion
should be given to this specific objective in terms of cultural teaching is one of the things
which they think about:

But I tried very hard to squeeze time out of 50 minutes to let my students know as much
as I can give them’(R86).

How much time should be given to the cultural teaching is not certain to achieve the
objective of cultural awareness. However, the willingness to teach this way can be felt
by this teacher’s effort to squeeze time out of 50 minute of normal language teaching
time.

The curiosity of students for something foreign and new may arise through the language

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they are learning:

My students are very curious about the culture of English speaking countries and they
often ask me some questions which I myself am not sure which make me lose face in
front of them’(R1).

I strongly feel students in 21st century can not be satisfied with only textbook
knowledge. The channel of acquiring knowledge used to be from the textbooks only but
now from different sources like Internet is a big challenge to us to face our students. We
teachers must be responsible to meet their curiosity and needs for their knowledge thirst.
It is a big challenge to be a teacher in 21st century (R301).

The curiosity of students is thus a challenge to teachers and the role of always teacher’s
asking questions will be replaced by student’s turn of asking questions which teacher
isn’t prepared to be asked and possibly he/she doesn’t know the answer. In particular, if
some questions asked in terms of culture of English speaking countries and teachers
themselves don’t have first-hand experiences of contact with that culture, students’
curiosity and thirst for what they want to know couldn’t be met and will feel
disappointed. This is a new challenge for teachers in the new century. They have to learn
what they don’t know to update their knowledge of language and culture which could be
shared in the classroom with their students.

From a rich variety of expressions above when teachers talk about the reasons why they
would like to spend more time on teaching culture, their strong desire to teach language
in cultural dimension to meet this fast changing situation can be seen. A kind of strong
sense of mission teachers would like to take in the new century can be felt, which makes
our teacher trainers think what we should do to help teachers in the front line and what
responsibilities we should take in the 21st century in this profession. This remains a

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question to answer in future study.

Difficulties to handle the cultural teaching in the classroom

So far the findings tell me that majority of teachers are willing to give more time to teach
culture in the language classroom. However there are still 29%/103 teachers who feel it
difficult to teach culture in the language classroom. What might be the reasons will be
discussed in the following.

Lack of time
The most frequently mentioned reason is ‘lack of time’ owing to overloaded curriculum
and heavy teaching tasks to the fact that there are not enough teaching periods to cover
both the language curriculum and teach culture, and to the fact students need a lot of
time to practice in order to acquire proficiency in the foreign language. The quotes
below illustrate this point of view:

Spending more time on cultural teaching absolutely hinders the regular progress of
teaching(R 92).

This is made clearer in the following by the emphasis on practice time:

If we spend more time on cultural teaching, we can’t finish our teaching tasks and
students are surely not having enough time to practice their English. Therefore, we have
to reluctantly part with teaching culture we love to do no culture teaching or
less culture teaching (R57).

This point is then further refined by the reference to the number of pupils in a class:

In more than 60 students in a language class, it has been already difficult to let most

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students have chance/time to practice their English. How can it be easy to teach culture?
Impossible!!(R321)

Then this is also seen in terms of the effect on assessment of themselves as teachers:

Our work achievements will be quantified. We don’t have enough time to deal with
cultural teaching (R211).

Whether we have time to do something else totally depends on whether we can finish
the teaching tasks required in the curriculum (R8).

Some teachers say that they don’t have enough time to prepare for culture teaching
implemented into the language teaching even though they want to do so:

Sometimes I do have some ideas to teach culture which takes time to design and plan
my lessons but I don’t have enough time. So I give it up (R245).

For some this is a matter of regret and self-criticism:

Involving students to do tasks, like role play and pair work for culture teaching is time
consuming and energy consuming. Some vocabulary used as prompts have to be
prepared and then provided in the class. I do feel my ability falls short of my wish
(R88).

Examinations
The second major reason mentioned by teachers is curriculum restrains and
examination-driven language education:

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Our education is for marks of students not for their quality (R15).

The remark here brings the key issue of education objectives onto the table and implies
the complaint and dissatisfaction of current assessment system in basic education even
though it is undergoing educational reform.

This point is even made explicit by the following:

We must give students real benefits ( ) to pass the university entrance exam , which
means that students at least can be guaranteed to find jobs and be enabled to survive after
graduation in future. Why to spend time on culture, which are not included in the
fate-deciding examination’ (R222).

The final destination of language teaching is to help students to enter university which is
considered to decide student’s fate in future. The teacher has to follow the baton of
examination as shown below:

The application of new concepts will lose all the possibilities under the conducting
baton of examination and ranking of students’ final score of examinations (R10).
Apart from this, there is no standard for assessing cultural teaching objectives:

The curriculum doesn’t include cultural evaluation standards and cultural teaching
objectives are not explicitly stated. We don’t know this aspect much (R97).

In short, teachers feel it difficult to implement cultural dimension in practice.

Lack of knowledge or interest

A small number teachers express their negative attitudes towards cultural teaching in the

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language classroom and an equally small group of teachers are not aware of this cultural
dimension at all.

Cultural teaching plays only small subordinate role in the whole process of language
teaching and learning. Unnecessary to talk about it (R304)

The teachers who hold this sort of opinion show that they still think language teaching is
the dominating task while culture plays a subordinate role in the process of language
learning. Cultural teaching should not be dealt with in the class and it is not realistic in
current situation. This can be seen in the following:

Cultural teaching should be dealt with after class not in the class (R256)
Far from teaching reality of classroom (R112).

Some teachers even strongly oppose teaching foreign cultures in the class. This shows
on one hand they are not clear about cultural importance in the language teaching and
they don’t have this awareness themselves. On the other, they want to maintain their
national identity:

Our own culture has not been learnt well. Why foreign one? (R259).

There are some teachers who think teaching culture is not their business in secondary
level. At this stage their major business is to help students acquire language knowledge
in order to pass the university examination. Culture can be learnt after students enter the
university. It is not late to learn it at the university level:

I am not aware of this. I think secondary level teaching should always focus on
language teaching (R19).

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Our primary task is to guarantee high rate of entering university for students (R107).
Students in secondary level should lay solid language foundation. As for cultural
learning it is not late for them to learn when entering universities (R298).

This part of negative reasons can’t be ignored and they do reflect the reality of language
education in Xinjiang. This small group of teachers is very brave to voice their true
feeling, which doesn’t mean the majority of teachers express their willingness to spend
more time on cultural teaching are not honest. I infer that the reformed curriculum has
exerted great impact on a large number of teachers and they would like to more as the
first batch of pioneers towards the cultural dimension of language teaching. They have
made the first significant step forward while a few teachers are not ready or not well
prepared mentally to move towards this direction implying they need help and training
conceptually.

Summary
In summary, the findings show that teachers appear to devote more time to language
teaching than to culture teaching in spite of the fact they also express a clear willingness
to devote more time to culture teaching. The impression gained from the results is that,
to a certain extent, teachers feel frustrated that they can’t devote more time to culture
teaching. They mention overloaded curriculum and curriculum restraints, lack of time,
being driven by examination, and their own lack of familiarity with foreign cultures. A
small number of teachers express their negative attitudes towards cultural teaching in
language classroom.

The frustration and difficulties mentioned above are truly reflective of the current
situation in language education in Xinjiang in spite of the fact that a large number of
teachers express their willingness to spend more time on teaching. It could be felt that

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the willingness to teach culture and frustration to realize their willingness make teachers
stuck in a dilemma. They find it difficult to go either forward or back. The new concepts
on one end drag teachers forward and the current situation on the other blocks teachers.
Educational reform is not always easy. Nonetheless, the findings are encouraging that
large number of teachers has realized the necessity and importance of language teaching
in cultural dimension and willingness to devote more time to culture teaching.

In the next section I will look at the textbooks teachers are using to investigate whether
they have freedom to choose what they need; whether there is enough cultural
knowledge or information in the textbook; whether teachers are happy with the textbook
which can meet their expectation in terms of cultural teaching etc.

5.7 Teachers’ perceptions of Cultural teaching materials in textbooks

(Q12, Q13, Q14, Q15, Q16

In the previous section, the results have shown that teachers are willing to devote more
time to culture teaching though the fact is teachers spent far more time on language
teaching. In this section, the views of English teachers with regard to the cultural
dimension of textbooks they use in class will be examined; for example, any freedom of
choice of materials; having enough cultural contents available from the textbooks or not;
satisfaction with cultural contents in the new textbook or not; and to what percentage the
cultural knowledge included in the examination, will be analyzed and discussed from the
data in order to answer my sub-research questions ‘What are the teachers’ perceptions of
cultural teaching materials in the textbook ?’

The textbook has traditionally been the crucial guiding principle of subject courses in
China. It has the characteristic of being authorities, academic and informative. It
provides for information, learning processes at school and for teaching processes in

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instruction. It can support the teacher’s decisions in relation to what and how to teach, it
can support the interaction of the teaching-process, it can codify certain types of
knowledge and educational ways of working and it can qualify the learning of the
student as a constructive learning process.

Despite their convenience, textbooks have often been criticized for being too rigid, not
being able to cater for students’ needs, imposing particular teaching approach onto
teachers and learning styles onto students, allowing insufficient space for teacher and
learner creativity (Sercu, 2005).

The new English textbooks, which came into being under the circumstance of basic
education reform in China in 2001, started to be used all over China in 2005. With this
background, teachers are first asked ‘who chooses the textbook(s) for you’ because I
want to find out whether the new guiding concept of ‘one curriculum and multi
textbooks ’(New English Curriculum, 2001) give teachers more freedom to choose more
than one textbook to attain the goals set in the curriculum. The finding is shown below
by frequency and percentage.

Table 5.21 Textbook choice

Q12 Who chooses the textbook(s) for you? F/P F/P

teachers trainers
You yourself 9/2.39% 8/12.7%
The school/college 138/36.7% 54/85.7%
The bureau of local education 98/26.06% 0/
The bureau of provincial education 100/26.6% 0/
Don’t know 31/8.24% 1/1.6%
376/100% 63/100%

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 F=frequency P=percentage

The table shows that teachers/trainers don’t have any freedom to choose textbooks for
themselves. Only 2.29 % teachers and 12.7% trainers say they can choose for themselves.
The right to decide what textbook(s) should be used is in the hands of schools, the
bureau of local education or the bureau of provincial education. The point must be made
clear here. The textbook chosen by schools or the educational bureau must be used by
teachers in order to deal with the unified examinations at provincial-level based on the
textbook. This fact implies that teachers are asked to use selected textbooks, confirming
that the textbook presents an important constituent of the teaching /learning process. It
can therefore rightly be assumed that the textbooks can significantly impact on the
techniques with which culture is taught in the English language classroom. The textbook
is the means to reduce teachers’ preparation time, and guarantee that teachers can
approach the teaching of the English language in a systematic way, and guarantee that all
levels of unified examinations can be carried out based on a unified textbook. The good
wish ‘one curriculum and multi-textbooks’ stressed in the curriculum can’t be easily
realized in practice. This is the case at least in Xinjiang. As far as I know, the textbook
used in schools in Xinjiang is ‘Go For IT’ published by People’s Education Press, one of
the biggest teaching materials publishers, dominating the teaching materials and
textbook market for basic education. The use of the unified textbook gives me a sense of
the culture agenda and orientation teachers follow. This result also reveals a picture of
students being presented with similar information and approach to culture learning
through the textbook.

As for trainers, the textbooks are usually chosen by the department where they work, not
by local or provincial bureau of education. At this level, there is no unified examination
as schools do. Therefore the colleges or universities can decide which textbooks they
want to use according to trainers’ preference. To be more specific, a textbook for a

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certain course taught by a certain trainer will be chosen by that trainer. But this trainer
has no right to order the book directly from the bookstore. She /he has to submit the title
of this textbook to the department and then to the textbook section of the college or
university to order it from the bookstore or publishing press. So 85.7% trainers think the
colleges chose the textbooks for them.

Apart from the restriction of free selection of textbooks, I want to know whether
teachers/trainers are free to use additional materials they think useful or they think
necessary for cultural teaching in their class. The result is shown by frequency and
percentage. See the table below.

Table 5.22 Freedom of using additional materials

Q13 Are you free to use additional F/P F/P

materials you think useful for cultural teachers trainers
teaching in your class?
Yes, I can. 173/46.01% 51/81%
No, I can’t. 144/38.30% 10/15.8%
I don’t know 59/15.69% 2/3.2%
376/100% 63/100%

It is clearly shown that nearly half the teachers (174/46.01%) are free to use additional
materials relevant to cultural teaching. This may suggest the possibility of
supplementing inadequacy of cultural contents offered by the textbook if teachers think
it necessary to add something to language contents even though they are confined to one
textbook. They may make free decision on what should be taught in terms of culture
knowledge. But I may argue that ‘free to use’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘actual use’ of
additional cultural materials in the classroom. The findings in a previous section showed
that the additional cultural teaching materials like film videos, pictures or cartoons are

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not very often used by teachers in the classroom. They rank using additional culture
materials the last (see section 5.5). From this I can say that teachers primarily rely on the
textbook to teach language and culture. However, there is at least half majority of
teachers who enjoy the freedom in a sense to decide what should be used in the class. As
for trainers, it can be seen that the majority of them (51/81%) can use additional
materials in their teaching. Thus I may say they have more freedom in using additional
materials than school teachers do. This may be due to the reason that colleges or
universities don’t have the provincial-level unified examination and have a less tight
curriculum to deal with. They are more flexible in their daily teaching control.

It is also noticeable that quite a number of teachers (144/38.30% in Table 21) say that
they can not use additional materials for their teaching. This fact may suggest the
teachers have so many teaching contents in the textbook to deal with that they have no
time to use additional materials beyond the textbook as it has been discussed before
when talking about teaching time distribution to cultural dimension (see section 5.6).Or
it may mean that they have to pay for photocopies themselves and students have to pay
the handouts as well which recently the government stressed that schools can’t charge
any extra fee from students. The table shows that 10/15.8% trainers say they can’t use
the additional materials. Perhaps they think there is enough cultural information or
knowledge in the textbook and they don’t need to use additional materials in terms of
culture teaching. Compared with teachers, trainers have more freedom to control the use
of additional materials in their teaching.

Only a small amount teachers (59/15.69%) and trainers (2/3.2%) say that they have no
ideas about the issue to use additional materials in the class. In my interpretation it
perhaps indicates this small group of teachers/trainers likes to remain neutral or they
may think the textbook is still their ‘code’ to abide by. They don’t want to cross the
boundary of the textbook.

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In order to further examine this issue, a follow-up question is asked ‘How much cultural
contents are included in the text book you use’ to see if there is any connection between
freedom of using additional cultural materials and to what extent there are cultural
contents included in the textbook. The result will be presented in the table below.

Table 5.23 Percentage of cultural contents in the textbook

Q14 How much cultural contents are F/P F/P

included in the textbook you use? teachers trainers
A lot 25/6.51% 6/9.68%
To certain extent (bits here and there) 259/67.45% 39/62.9%
Undecided 12/3.13% 1/1.61%
Little 86/22.40% 16/25.81%
Not any at all 2/0.52% 0/0%
384/100% 62/100%

The table shows that only 25/6.5% teachers and 6/9.68% trainers considered the cultural
contents in the textbook a lot and another small group of teachers (86/22.40%)and
trainers(16/25.81%) say that the amount of cultural information are inadequate. The
majority of teachers (259/67.45) and trainers (39/62.9%) think the amounts of cultural
contents in the textbook are to certain extent enough though there are bits here and there
in the textbook. Thus I can say that teachers/trainers don’t think they need to use
additional cultural materials since the textbook provides enough in amount even though
46% teachers and 81% trainers say they can be free to choose cultural teaching materials.
Therefore it confirms the assumption that ‘free to use’ doesn’t actually mean ‘actual use’
if they think it is enough in cultural contents.

Then I may wonder if a majority of teachers think there are enough cultural contents in

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the textbook and whether these cultural contents in the textbook can meet their
expectation or are they satisfied with the cultural contents, about which teachers’
opinions are asked in our questionnaire. The result will be shown in the table below.

Table 5.24 Teachers’ degree of satisfaction with the cultural contents of the textbook
they use

Q 16 Do the cultural contents of the F/P F/P

textbook(s) teachers trainers
you use meet your expectations?
Yes, very much so. 17/4.46% 1/1.64%
Yes, up to a certain extent. 204/53.54% 31/50.82%%
No, not enough. 39/10.24 1/1.64%
No, not at all. 103/27.03% 27/44.3%
I don’t know 18/4.78% 1/1.64%
Total 381/100% 61/100%
F=frequency P=percentage

If ‘yes-group’ and ‘no-group’ are combined respectively, it will be clear to see that
221/58% teachers are satisfied at least to a certain extent with the cultural contents in
their textbook while it is also noticeable that quite a big number of teachers (142/37.27%)
are not happy with the textbook they are using because the textbook, they think, can’t
meet their expectation and they may want to supplement some teaching materials
beyond the textbook, but for some reasons they can’t as I discussed above. The reasons
why teachers can’t choose the additional materials for culture teaching might be due to
overloaded curriculum, lack of time, under the pressure of examinations, self-payment
for photocopies of materials, cultural contents not systematically presented or not well
chosen, narrow selection of cultural information and theme, all of which have been
discussed earlier. Compared with teachers, trainers’ dissatisfaction with cultural
contents included in the textbooks seems to be greater than teachers’. 28/45.94% trainers

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are not happy with the cultural contents if combined with no-groups. This might be
because trainers have more cultural awareness because they have more chances to attend
ICC conferences, involve more academic researches in this aspect than school teachers
do. Therefore it may be easy for trainers to realize that cultural contents in the textbooks
are not enough to meet their needs as some scholars (Yang, 2005; Wang, 2005) suggest
culture-oriented textbooks should be compiled and some have in fact been in use, for
example a set of textbooks (4 volumes) named ‘English Course through Culture
Perspective’ has been recently published for university students. In spite of this, there
are still over 50% trainers who are happy with textbooks they used at present.

This enables me to say safely that on the whole teachers and trainers’ willingness to
resort to the use of additional materials, adequacy of cultural contents and the stated
satisfaction with the textbook they have been asked to teach with can be seen. Teachers’
perceptions of cultural teaching materials are fairly realistic with respect to the current
situation in Xinjiang. The positive attitudes and classroom reality can be in harmony
although sometimes can be in conflict. Now I want to see whether teachers’ willingness
to use additional materials and satisfaction with the textbook in which cultural contents
are adequately provided are in harmony with the evaluation of examination. Therefore
teachers were asked a question ‘What is your estimation of culture proportion included
in the exam’ in order to make this picture clearer. The result is shown as following:

Table 5.25 Estimation of culture contents included in the exam

Q15 what is your estimation of culture F/P F/P

proportion included in the exam teachers trainers
0% 9/2.36% 4/6.35%
1-10% 190/49.87% 32/51%
11-20% 125/32.81% 17/27%
21-30% 37/9.71 7/11%

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 31-40% 20/5.25 3/4.8%
381/100% 63/100%

The prevailing majority estimated that only 1-20 percent of cultural contents are
included in the exams of English language shown by teachers (315/82.68%) and trainers
(49/78%). This result corresponds to the earlier data shown in section 5.6 when teachers
were asked how much time they gave to culture teaching; over half of the teachers
(206/53.1%) and trainers (34/55.74%) say they give 80% language teaching -20%
cultural teaching. This finding may indicate if culture contents only occupy about 20%
in the exam, teachers certainly devote more time to language teaching. Thus I may
further infer that the new textbook. ‘Go For IT’ contains more language materials than
culture contents from which the examinations are taken. This 20% cultural content, from
the result, is considered to be enough and teachers are very happy with the amount of
culture information in the text book because of their views about the exam.

In summary, the picture, in this section, was painted around cultural teaching materials
used in general in Xijiang. The findings show that teachers have little freedom to select
the textbooks, which are chosen by educational institutions. But many feel free to use
additional teaching materials if they need in terms of cultural teaching. The findings also
show that teachers think there seems to be enough cultural contents included in the
textbook in use and it becomes unnecessary for teachers to use additional materials for
cultural teaching. The primary means for teachers to present cultural information or
knowledge, as is revealed in the survey, is through the medium of the textbook in use
which teachers rely on a great deal for language knowledge far more than cultural
knowledge or information.

Although, as seen from the previous sections, teachers shared the view that cultural
teaching in language teaching is very important for a number of reasons, on the whole

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the emphasis in the class is still towards language learning. Cultural information is only
a subsidiary issue and given little weight in the language examination.

5.8 Teachers’ general opinions regarding intercultural competence

teaching

In the previous sections, I have discussed different aspects of foreign language teachers’
professional thinking with specific focus on the teaching of culture. It has been shown
how they define the concept of culture; how they understand the objectives of English
language education and culture teaching; the comparison of aims of FLT and culture
teaching shared by Chinese teachers and European teachers; what techniques teachers
favour to use to teach culture; how much time they distribute to culture teaching and
how satisfied they are with cultural dimension of teaching materials they use. In this
section, I want to look at how teachers envisage intercultural competence teaching, at the
level of their general attitudes and opinions toward the teaching of culture and
intercultural competence teaching.
I investigated teachers’ opinions by asking them to score a number of opinion statements
on a scale of strongly agree, agree, undecided, disagree or strongly disagree. There are
21 opinion statements provided in the questionnaire in random order. My purpose is to
look at their general disposition of intercultural competence teaching through two
different angles. First, I want to see their overall opinion toward intercultural
competence teaching. Second I want to examine whether there are some factors which
could affect teachers’ willingness or could cause their hesitation to teach intercultural
competence in English language education. As mentioned there are 21 items in Q17 (see
chapter 4, 4.3.2) investigating teachers’ general disposition of intercultural competence
teaching. I decided to group the responses according to theme and develop an overall
understanding from the analysis of the groups. The 21 opinion statements will be
presented in the following.

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Table 5.26 Presentation of the statements regarding intercultural dimension teaching

1.In a foreign language classroom, teaching culture is as important as teaching the

foreign language.
2.Before you can teach culture or do anything about the intercultural dimension of
foreign language teaching, students have to possess a sufficiently high level of
proficiency in the foreign language.
3.*Intercultural competence cannot be acquired at school.
4.*It is impossible to teach the foreign language and foreign culture in an integrated
way.
5.I would like to promote the intercultural competence through my teaching.
6.*Cultural teaching has no effect what so ever on students' attitudes.
7.The more students know about the foreign culture, the more tolerant they are.
8.In international contacts misunderstandings arise equally often from linguistic as
from cultural differences.
9.Foreign language teaching should not only touch upon foreign cultures. It should
also deepen pupils' understanding of their own culture and identity.
10.When you only have a limited number of teaching periods, culture teaching has to
give way to language teaching.
11.Every subject, not just foreign language teaching, should promote the acquisition
of intercultural communicative competence.
12.A foreign language teacher should present a realistic image of a foreign culture,
and therefore should also touch upon negative sides of the foreign culture and
society.
13.If one wants to be able to achieve anything at all as regards to intercultural
understanding one should use texts written in the mother tongue and discuss these
texts in the mother tongue, even when in a foreign language classroom
14In the foreign language classroom students can only acquire additional cultural

274
 knowledge. They cannot acquire intercultural communicative competence.
15.Only when there are ethnic minority community pupils in your classes do you
have to teach intercultural competence.
16.*Language and culture cannot be taught in an integrated way. You have to
separate the two.
17.Intercultural education reinforces students’ already existing stereotypes of other
peoples and cultures.
18.Providing additional cultural information makes students more tolerant towards
other cultures and peoples.
19.I consider the introduction of ‘cultural awareness’ into the English Curriculum as
an important reform.
20*My initial teacher training course didn’t give me any help with teaching the
cultural dimension.
21.In the course of teaching methods, the section of ‘how to teach culture’ should be
added in the text book.
Note: The scores of the items 3,4,6,16,and 20 are reversed.
First, I look at teachers’ general attitudes towards intercultural competence teaching in
the language education. The 5th statement asks teachers whether they would like to
promote the intercultural competence through their teaching. If I put ‘strongly agree’ and
‘agree’ together, the result shows that eight out of ten teachers (317/83%) and nine out of
ten trainers (57/92%) express their willingness towards this issue. This encouraging
finding allows me to say most teachers/trainers are aware of the importance of
intercultural competence teaching in the language education in their mental pictures of
pedagogy. The previous findings obtained from Q2 and Q4 showed that the teachers are
interested in teaching culture and realized the importance of teaching culture. And here
most of teachers would like to promote the intercultural competence through their
teaching. I want to combine the three variables together to generate a new variable of
teacher’s overall willingness to teach cultural/intercultural dimension for the purpose of

275
observing if there are any factors which may affect their willingness to teach this aspect.
The table will present below.

Table 5.27 Willingness to teach IC

Q17-5 Willingness to teach cultural/intercultural dimension

teachers trainers
1 74 19.20% 26 41.3%
2 242 62.4% 33 52.4%
3 38 9.1% 3 4.8%
4 18 6.2% 1 1.6%
5 5 1.75% 0
Total 377 100% 63 100%

The links of favourable factors with their willingness are those opinion variables shown
in this survey:
1) most teachers (309/82%) and trainers (53/86.9%) consider the introduction of
‘cultural awareness’ into the English curriculum as an important reform in the 19th
statement.
2) There are 294/77% teachers and 52/81% trainers think that teaching culture is as
important as teaching the English language (the 1st statement) and 247/66% teachers
and 49/79% trainers disagree with the 4th statement ‘It is impossible to teach the foreign
language and foreign culture in an integrated way’. This indicates that in teachers’ views,
it is possible to integrate the language and culture teaching. The findings have been
shown in the section 5.3. by teachers’ own words, some repeated here, for instance:

I always think language and culture can’t be separated, they complement each
other.(R23)
Without knowing a country’s culture, it is difficult to learn this language well.(R34).

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Learning a country’s language, its culture must be learnt at the same time. Using the
language which students are learning to know the history and civilization of different
countries,… (R16)
Language and culture can not be separated. I want very much myself to teach language
and culture as water and milk well-blended (R265).
Again here it shows teachers’ clear understanding that language and culture should be
taught in an integrated way.

3) A large majority of teachers (312/83%) and trainers (58/92.06%) agree with the 9th
statement that foreign language teaching should not only touch upon foreign cultures. It
should also deepen students’ understanding of their own culture and identity.

4) In teachers’ views, every subject, not only foreign language subject, should promote
the acquisition of intercultural communicative competence (11th statement), agreed by
(300/77%) teachers and 48/77% trainers over half of our respondents. Teaching across
the curriculum is relatively new development in China, but teachers tend to agree that
this is not only the language teachers’ responsibility but also the responsibility of joint
effort devoted by other subject teachers to work for this direction.

5) Teachers (298/77%) and trainers (56/88.88%) also agree to the idea that in
international contacts, misunderstandings arise equally often from linguistic as from
cultural differences (the 8th statement).

The findings above revealed that these favourable factors possibly affect teachers’
willingness to teach intercultural competence in the language education. In order to see
whether there is any relationship between their willingness and these factors, I decided
to use the statistics of Pearson correlation to test the relationship between the two.

Table 5.28 Factors affect their willingness to teach IC

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 Q17- Q17- Q17 Q17- Q17- Q17-
19 1 -4 9 11 8
Teachers’ Pearson .545( .492( .062 .344( .261( .273(
Willingness *) **) **) **) **)
Sig .000 .000 .254 .000 .000 .000
N 341 347 340 343 344 343
Trainers’ Pearson .349( .549( -.220 .348( .363( .340(
Willingness *) **) **) **) **)
Sig .006 .000 .089 .006 .004 .007
N 60 62 61 62 61 62
** P< 0.01 (2-tailed) , * P< 0.05 (2-tailed)
The above table shows that the independent opinion variables (19,1,4,9,11 and 8 in Q 17)
were found to co-variate with dependent variable ‘willingness’ (Pearson correlations).
The relationship is significant (Sig. two-tailed) at the 1%(**) level except that the Q17-4
opinion variable ‘It is impossible to teach foreign language and foreign culture in an
integrated way’ doesn’t show the relationship with teachers and trainers’ willingness to
teach IC . Thus I may say these factors take effect on their attitudes and promote their
willingness in intercultural competence shown by the result but an integrated way of
teaching language and culture appeared not link with their willingness. The reason may
be attributed to some factors such as over-loaded curriculum, understanding of culture
and less culture content exams etc. which I have discussed before. I am sure there are
some factors which may weaken teachers’ willingness to teach IC. Before I discuss the
negative disposition of teachers toward IC teaching, I want to see whether there are any
differences in Chinese teachers’ willingness and European teachers’ in teaching IC since
I borrowed some questions from CULTNET project as mentioned in Chapter 4. The
comparison table will be presented below.

Table 5.29 The comparison of the factors affected willingness of teachers from China
and some European countries

CN SEL BUL GRE MEX POL SPA SWE

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 In a FL classroom,
-492** 0.320** 0.130 0.591** 0.475** 0.022 0.502** 0.372**
teaching culture is as
1 .000 0.000 0.494 0.000 0.001 0.884 0.002 0.004
important as teaching
347 151 30 39 43 48 35 58
FL

It is impossible to -.062 -0.186** 0.003 -0.318* -0.327* -0.509** -0.514** -0.054

2 teach the FL and FC .254 0.022 0.986 0.049 0.030 0.000 0.002 0.682
in a integrated way 340 151 30 39 44 48 35 59

I would like to .735** 0.953 0.854** 0.763 0.758** 0.899** 0.932** 0.639**
3 promote to ICC in .000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
my teaching 347 151 28 39 44 47 35 57

Culture teaching has -.107* -0.384** -0.068 -0.155 -0.366* -0.323* -0.514** -0.210
4 no effect whatsoever .048 0.000 0.719 0.346 0.016 0.025 0.002 0.175
on students' attitude 341 150 30 39 43 48 35 58

The more students

.309** 0.345** -0.268 0.547** 0.355* 0.429** 0.480 0.591**
know about FC, the
5 .000 0.000 0.153 0.000 0.018 0.002 0.004 0.000
more tolerate they
343 151 30 39 44 48 35 59
are.
Every subject, not
.261** 0.353** -0.179 0.617 0.283 0.300* 0.475 0.362
just FLT should
6 .000 0.000 0.353 0.000 0.066 0.038 0.004 0.006
promote the
344 151 29 39 43 48 35 57
acquisition of ICC
Foreign teacher
should present a
realistic image of FC, .374** 0.137 -0.397* 0.340* 0.621** 0.265 0.177 0.460
7 therefore should .000 0.094 0.030 0.034 0.000 0.069 0.309 0.000
touch upon the 345 151 30 39 44 48 35 59
negative sides of FC
and society

Only when there are

ethnic minority -.068 -0.214** -0.103 -0.411** -0.104 -0.511** -0.380 -0.308
8 community pupils in .213 0.006 0.593 0.009 0.502 0.000 0.024 0.019
your class do you 342 151 29 39 44 48 35 58
have to teach IC
Language and culture
-.093 -0.229** 0.022 -0.285 -0.247 -0.528** -0.496** -0.268*
can't be taught in an
9 .085 0.005 0.910 0.079 0.106 0.000 0.000 0.042
integrated way you
344 151 29 39 44 48 35 58
have separate the two

Providing additional .248** 0.367** -0.200 0.368* -0.005 0.402** 0.548 0.392
10 cultural information .000 0.000 0.282 0.021 0.972 0.005 0.001 0.003
makes students more 343 149 30 39 44 48 36 57

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 tolerant forwards
other cultures and
people

From the table above, some common features and observations can be made. First, the
first variable ‘In a foreign language classroom, teaching culture is as important as
teaching foreign language’ and the third variable ‘I would like to teach IC through my
teaching’ are significantly, strongly and positively related to the teachers’ degree of
willingness in teaching culture and intercultural dimensions. Secondly, I can see that
some other variables affecting teachers’ willingness appear to be positively related for
teachers from at least four countries (variable 5, 6 ,7 and 8). Most teachers both in China
and some other countries agree that the more students know about foreign cultures, the
more students are tolerant which is closely linked to their willingness except teachers
from Bulgaria and Spain (Variable 5).
To my surprise, the variable 6 ‘Every subject, not only FLT should promote the
acquisition of ICC’ was found to be significantly related to the degree of Chinese
teachers’ willingness. I can’t explain this finding because teaching across curriculum is
something new in China. It is often taken for granted that it is the business of language
teachers’ to help students acquire ICC not other subject teachers’. On the contrary, this
variable doesn’t show any relation to a degree of willingness for teachers from Bulgaria,
German, Mexico, Spain and Sweden.

I also found that Chinese teachers agree largely with the statement that the realistic
image of the foreign culture should be presented (variable 7) compared with teachers
from other countries because they are largely satisfied with the way in which the
textbooks approach culture teaching. The positive outcome of this is that at least those
who took part in the research will have realized that there is more value in presenting a
realistic image of a foreign culture than in trying to motivate students to learn the FL
through presenting an overly attractive image of it. Teachers nearly in all countries

280
disagree to a certain extent that it is only when there are ethnic minority community
children in one’s class that one should try to promote the acquisition of intercultural
competence.

Thirdly there are some statements of teachers beliefs appeared negatively related to a
degree of teachers’ willingness such as variables 2, 4, and 9 . Clearly there is negative
relationship in variable 2 ‘It is impossible to teach the foreign culture in an integrated
way’ concerning a degree of willingness for teachers from China, Bulgaria and Sweden.
Perhaps they think it is impossible to teaching language and culture in an integrated way
which may affect their willingness to teach ICC. As for variable 4, the majority of
teachers from nearly all countries disagree that culture teaching has no effect on students’
attitudes showing significantly related to their willingness to teach ICC.

The variable (9) says ‘language and culture can’t be taught in an integrated way, but
separated the two’. It was found out that teachers from China, Bulgaria, German, and
Mexico hesitated to take a clear stand confirmed by the fact that the teachers didn’t take
extreme positions when they asked whether they thought language and culture could be
taught in an integrated way.

In conclusion, I may say that teachers both in China and in European/American countries
express their clear willingness to teach intercultural competence based on their
understanding of this issue from other aspects presented above and reinforced in turn
their desire and being willing to do in this way, which is very encouraging in the survey,
especially the result obtained from Chinese teachers. Intercultural competence teaching
is a new concept and the research on this area is starting recently. But I have to admit that
any innovation in education is inherently threatening and can only succeed when
teachers support it. To know teachers’ opinions and attitudes towards this new issue will
certainly help teacher trainers to work together with teachers to depart from traditional

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way of teaching and build on new approaches to language education.

From the discussion above, some factors affecting Chinese teachers’ willingness to teach
ICC are analyzed and findings have been compared with teachers from some European
countries. The findings convinced me to say teachers in China and some European
countries shared very similar views towards ICC teaching and most teachers are ready to
meet the new challenge of the changing views on language teaching and learning from
language competence to communicative competence then to intercultural competence
due to the need for intercultural cooperation in the global village.

Next I want to know whether there are some factors which may weaken teachers’
willingness or may cause their hesitation to teach intercultural competence. It is
noticeable that a large number of teachers (323/84% ) and trainers(52/83.87%) believe
that before teaching culture or anything about intercultural dimension of foreign
language teaching, students have to possess a sufficiently high level of proficiency in the
foreign language (the 2nd statement). Students in secondary level surely can’t acquire
sufficient language ability, which requires teachers to devote more time on teaching
phonetics, language points, new vocabularies and grammatical structures etc. Thus over
half of teachers (244/64%) express their opinions that culture teaching has to give way to
language teaching when only having a limited number of teaching hours (the 10th
statement). This view shows clearly the priority of language over culture teaching in the
classroom. However, trainers held different view from teachers’. Only a small number of
trainers (19/30%) agree that culture teaching has to give way to language teaching if the
teaching hours are limited. That implies that the majority of trainers would like to
balance the two.

If I refer back to the finding of their teaching time devoted to language and culture, both
teachers and trainers appeared to give 80% time to language and 20% to culture.

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Therefore I could see their contradictory attitudes towards cultural/intercultural and
language teaching. When they are asked the principle of language and cultural teaching
they agree Their different opinions appear on the same survey; on one page they agree
on the other they disagree to the same question indicating there is a gap between theory
and practice in terms of cultural teaching. Teachers want to integrate language and
culture in their language class if they know how to do it. Thus I can see contradiction and
the teachers’ major concern is still with the language and they see the cultural teaching
as something subsidiary which has low priority in their concerns and stimulates littler
thoughts about aims, methods, evaluation and assessment with respect to language
teaching.

When teachers are further invited to give their opinion about the statement that
intercultural competence can’t be acquired at school (the 3rd statement), 117/ 31%
teachers say that the intercultural competence can’t be acquired at school while 133/35%
teachers can’t decide whether it can be acquired or not. If I combine the two percentages
together, 66% teachers think it impossible or hesitating/ uncertain to develop students’
intercultural competence at school. Only less than half respondents disagree with this.
Similarly, only 9/14.51% trainers agree that IC can’t be acquired at school and 22/35.48
trainers remain neutral. Nearly half number of trainers is uncertain about this issue.

If I further look at the 14th statement ‘In the foreign language classroom, students can
only acquire additional cultural knowledge. They can’t acquire intercultural
communicative competence’. From the data I can see that there are still (102/27%)
teachers who are not sure and (95/25%) agree to this idea though almost half
respondents (184/48%) disagree with this point. Compared with trainers, there are over
half trainers (38/62.3%) who disagree with this statement revealing that the acquisition
of culture knowledge may not promote students’ ICC. But there is 14/22.6% of trainers
who are not sure about this and 9/14.5% agree to say that the acquisition of culture

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knowledge can’t help students’ acquire ICC. This again indicates those trainers and as
well teachers’ hesitation and uncertainty which may surely shake their willingness to
teach intercultural competence in language education.

I may wonder whether these factors may affect European teachers’ willingness to teach
ICC. The comparison is better to be made to make this picture complete.

Table 5.30 The comparison of factors weaken willingness of teachers from China and
European countries

Bel Bul Gre Mex Pol Spa Swe CN

1.A sufficiently high 2.65 2.56 2.47 2.82 2.60 3.46 3.47 4.13
level of proficiency is
needed before you can
teach culture
2. Intercultural skills 2.30 1.78 2.65 2.32 2.23 2.19 2.18 2.89
can’t be acquired at
school.
3. When you only have 3.78 3.39 3.62 3.49 3.45 3.46 3.47 3.57
a limited number of
teaching periods,
culture teaching has to
give way to language
teaching.
4. Cultural teaching has 1.90 1.93 2.00 2.16 1.88 2.33 1.62 2.57
no effect what so ever
on students' attitudes.

The data I have from the CULTNET is mean scores. For the reason of comparison, I use
the same technique to deal with the data obtained from Chinese teachers. The meaning
of the scores, ranging between 0.00 and 5.00, indicating 0.00-1.00disagree completely,

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1.00-2.00 disagree, 2.00-3.00 undecided, 3.00-4.00 agree and 4.00-5.00 agree
completely.

From the table I can see, Chinese teachers agree (4.13) that language proficiency is
needed before teaching culture or doing anything about the intercultural dimension while
teachers from Spain and Swede agree to a certain extent (3.49, 3.47). Teachers from the
other five countries are not decided as to whether or not one should postpone the
teaching of cultural/intercultural competence until learners have acquired a sufficiently
high level of language competence. Either complete agreement or hesitation from
teachers indicate culture/intercultural teaching is not in the same position as language
teaching because teachers in all countries except Spain wonder whether or not
intercultural competence can be acquired at school (mean score arranged from 2.89 to
2,18 ). Further proof can be seen from the third statement .All teachers in eight countries
largely agree that culture teaching has to give way to language teaching if there is limited
number of teaching periods, clearly showing the high level of linguistic proficiency is a
prerequisite to culture teaching.
Chinese teachers as well teachers from Poland and Spain are not certain whether or not
intercultural education has effect on students’ attitudes (fourth statement). Teachers of
other countries are convinced that intercultural education has effect on students’
attitudes.

From the comparison, I found that there are more similarities than differences between
countries. If I take Chinese teachers and CULTNET teachers as a big group, it can be
seen that teachers appear to be in doubt regarding at least three facets of ICT. They are
not convinced of the effect ICT can have on students. They wonder whether IC can be
acquired at school and are undecided as to whether or not one should postpone the
teaching of IC until learners have acquired a sufficiently high level of competence in FL.
Thus I can’t say that these factors may not affect teachers’ willingness in teaching ICC in

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a sense. This is a mental picture I can draw from some favourable opinions teachers have
to reinforce their willingness to teach intercultural competence and some unfavourable
ones which may shake their willingness to do so, opinions regarding the preconditions
that need to be met before teachers can start teaching intercultural competence.

Considering these observations together, I can say that the findings clearly point towards
the existence of two kinds of teachers’ opinions: positively support the view of ICC and
negatively disposed toward this issue. Teachers who are not in favour of ICC teaching in
foreign language education believe that it is impossible to integrate language and culture
teaching. They also believe that intercultural skills can’t be acquired at school. Teachers
do not believe in the positive effect of ICC on students’ attitudes and perceptions. On the
whole they believe that high level of language competence is needed before teaching
culture/interculture. By contrast, teachers who are in favour of ICC, believe that teaching
culture is as important as teaching foreign language. In their opinion, intercultural
competence teaching makes students’ more tolerant. These teachers prefer an approach
that is cross-curricular and are convinced that teachers of every subject should teach
intercultural competence, not only language teachers’ responsibility to do so.

At the end of this section, I have to point out that I put the last two statements in Q17
chiefly from the aspect of future training and future research.

In the last two opinion statements (20 and 21) teachers were asked whether their initial
teacher training course gave any help with the teaching of cultural dimension. 127/34%
teachers say it did not give any help and 76/20% teachers are not sure whether it gave
help or not. Only 175/46% teachers expressed that it gave some help in teaching culture.
Then I asked teachers ‘whether in the course of English teaching methods, the topic of
‘how to teach culture’ should be added in the textbook’. The larger numbers of teachers
289/76% agree that the chapter of ‘how to teach culture’ should be added in the course of

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teaching methodology. This shows teachers have strong desire to receive a training
course of language and culture rather than training them of language. It implies that the
initial teacher training course didn’t adequately prepare them for teaching a cultural
dimension and it also implies that they need to know how to teach this cultural
dimension in language teaching. We teacher trainers and teachers are both facing the
new challenge in the teaching of language and culture, in the teaching of intercultural
competence in future.

5.9 A summary of the chapter

This chapter gives an analysis and discussion of the empirical data collected through the
survey. The chapter aims to identify and investigate school teachers’ view on cultural
teaching in language teaching in Xinjiang, how they understand the objectives of
language and culture teaching; their perceptions of culture, what culture topics they
would like to teach, how much time they devote to language and culture teaching, what
techniques they use in realization of culture teaching objectives and their satisfaction
with the current materials in terms of culture teaching, and finally their general
disposition towards intercultural communicative teaching is investigated.

Section 5.1 provides a general picture of school teachers’ profile in terms of their age,
educational background, years of teaching, teaching hours and grades they are teaching
and Section 5.2 data around the school teachers’ perceptions of language and culture
teaching objectives, their attitudes towards cultural teaching have been presented. The
data of this section show that most teachers are interested in teaching culture in
language teaching and their attitudes towards cultural teaching are positive. They
perceive the either language teaching objectives or cultural teaching objectives
more in terms of general teaching objectives: promoting students’ motivation and
sustain their interest in learning English, widen students’ horizon by means of cultural
teaching.

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Section 5.3 deals with data regarding teachers understanding of culture. The data show
that teachers give a very extensive definition of culture but mainly focusing on small c
like ‘traditions and customs,’ and ‘the way of people’s life’ etc.

In section 5.4, the data concerning the possible cultural topics teachers favour to teach
has been presented. The small c culture in terms of ‘daily life’, ‘festivals and customs’,
‘shopping, food and drink’ and school and education are more supported by teachers.

Section 5.5 deals with data concerning cultural teaching activities teachers used. It shows
that the most often used technique to teach culture is through the textbook while
teaching English. The recitation of dialogue, the use of tapes, and the instruction of
cultural loaded vocabulary and teachers’ own knowledge of culture transmitted to
students are more used by teachers. However the activities regarding the skills and
attitudinal dimension development are not much used.

In section 5.6, the data concerning teachers’ devotion of time to culture teaching and
their willingness to culture teaching are presented. The data shows that teachers’
devotion of time to culture teaching is less than the time devoted to language
teaching though they express their willingness to teach culture in language classroom.
The reasons why teachers can’t devote more time to culture teaching are provided. They
mention overloaded curriculum and curriculum restraints, lack of time, being driven by
examination, and their own lack of familiarity with foreign cultures.

Section 5.7 deals with the data of teachers’ perceptions of materials they use. It shows
that teachers have little freedom to choose teaching materials, which are selected by
local educational institutions. The findings reveal that cultural contents included in the
current textbook are enough at the moment and teachers think it unnecessary for

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them to use additional materials for culture teaching because this part of knowledge is
not tested in the exams. They still focus on language teaching more than cultural
teaching.

The last section investigates teachers’ general disposition towards intercultural

communicative teaching. The data shows that teachers are moving towards this
direction willingly. The comparison is made between Chinese teachers and CULTNET
teachers as well. The result reveals that there are more similarities than differences
between countries in ICT. The majority of teachers are willing to teach IC though they
still focus primarily and almost exclusively on acquisition of language competence.

Having summarized the findings, I can now think about the purpose of the research as set
out in Chapter One and the research questions and then consider what the implications
are for teacher training. This will be the purpose of Chapter Six.

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 Chapter Six

Concluding Remarks

Introduction
In the beginning of the thesis, I have mentioned that the original idea of this research
project was based on my personal experience living in UK. Although I was competent in
the usage of the language, I could not communicate effectively in an entirely English
speaking environment, not to mention adapting to the English way of life. Given my first
hand experience, I have come to realize that language learning should include the
cultural factor, no matter how fuzzy the term may be defined. This is because the lack of
it means that language learning remains superficial and would only hinder the learner in
developing a deeper understanding of self and other cultures. If the objective of learning
a new language is to facilitate communication, and to bridge the chasm of cultural
differences in the world, then I am convinced that without the inclusion of a cultural
dimension in language learning, effective communication cannot take place.

In the previous chapters, I have traced the stages of development in English Language
pedagogy and showed that the method of English language teaching has changed from
the commonly used Grammar-translation method of instruction to the current rather
student-centred learning approach. In an earlier chapter, I also gave a chronological
description of the development of English Language teaching in China and have
highlighted the change in attitude towards language acquisition by including the cultural
component, may it be high culture, deep culture or popular culture, in the curriculum.
The 2001 English Curriculum was a pivotal point in the history of English Language
Teaching Reform; it is the first critical step towards liberalizing curriculum development
by decentralizing the designing of curriculum in China. Based on the Beijing paper, the

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assessment of students’ language competency level is no longer determined by skills and
knowledge acquisition but it encompasses a broader framework which includes three
other criteria namely, learners’ emotion/attitude, learning strategies and cultural
awareness. The deliberate inclusion of cultural awareness in the official document is an
important gesture by the Ministry of Education because on one hand, it recognizes that
language learning is inseparable from cultural learning, and it also suggests on the other
hand the seriousness of changing the teaching approach towards language acquisition.

From the survey conducted however, there remains a gap between the official statement
and the practice on the ground – classroom teaching. The teachers responding to the
survey appeared to be receptive of teaching culture in language classes, but the
effectiveness is somewhat less than desirable. As discussed in the previous chapter, the
lack of full integration of culture and language acquisition reduces the learning
experience to either a mere introduction of cultural knowledge or a transmission of
information at a superficial level – both exposing a flaw of assuming culture as a static
entity. This unfortunate outcome could be due to several factors which I classify under
Official Document, Teachers’ Background and Institution/External climate. The
curriculum lacks a full integration of culture and language acquisition.

6.1 Summary of results

As an English language educator, I am concerned about the level of intercultural

competency in my teaching college. In order to identify the areas of change so as to
improve the students’ language competency level, my investigation began with the quest
to find out the school teachers’ perception of cultural teaching and their current practices
in the classroom.

My hypothesis during the course of the research was that although cultural awareness

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was introduced into the curriculum, the infusion of the cultural dimension is not at an
ideal state in the schools in Xinjiang. I began my investigation with the teachers to
understand their perception of cultural teaching and started with the following questions.
1. What are the existing cultural elements in language curriculum in terms of
Intercultural Communicative Competence?
2. Is it necessary to develop cultural elements in the curriculum?
3. What are the school teachers’ perceptions of culture/intercultural teaching in
language teaching?
4. Are teachers’ perceptions a satisfactory basis for introducing change in their
teaching?
As was discussed in Chapter 5, a survey was conducted with teachers in Xinjiang with
the aim to learn about the current state of Intercultural Communication competency in
schools.
Table 6.1 A summary of the responses in relation to the research questions are tabulated
below:
Research Questions Summary of Survey Remarks
What are the existing • Low level of cultural This could be influenced by:
cultural elements in discussion • the official document
language curriculum in • Focus on small c Cultural which continues to emphasize
terms of ICC? items like daily life and language skills and
routines knowledge acquisition
• the examination culture
in Chinese society
Is it necessary to • The results suggested that This could be influenced by:
develop cultural teachers are currently • Teachers academic
elements in the teaching cultural awareness to attainment and personal
curriculum? arouse the interests of experiences
students to learn the language. • Examination-oriented
• Teachers believe that the environment
ultimate objective is to
develop students’ ICC
• Teachers are not entirely
comfortable with the teaching
of culture in language
classroom because teachers

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 themselves may not fully
grasp the meaning of it.
Hence the cultural element
must be explicitly written into
the syllabus
• The lack of available
additional resources that are
not written for examination
purposes
What are the school The results from the This could be influenced by:
teachers’ perceptions of respondents highlighted the • Teachers’ background
culture/intercultural following problems: • Official document
teaching in language • A clear understanding of • External environment –
teaching culture is an exception rather influenced by UK/USA
than a norm among teachers, societies
suggesting that the definition
of culture is problematic at
the school level and this could
be due to the educational
background of teachers and
their life experiences in
general
• The understanding of
culture commonly refers to
folklore, food, festival and
facts (including factual
knowledge of history and
geography) – small ‘c’ culture
• The curriculum on
cultural awareness is based on
British and American
societies.
Are teachers’ • There is a need to • This requires a critical
perceptions a develop a revised curriculum review of the current text
satisfactory basis for that addresses the needs of the materials adopted by schools
introducing change in teachers/students in the in China
their teaching? schools • To develop Cultural
Intelligence (Cultural
Quotient – CQ) among school
teachers and students

The table above outlines the core ideas of my thesis and at the same time highlights the

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main issues arising from the survey which need to be analyzed. The summary above also
forms a framework for curriculum development in the future in China.

6.2 An analysis of the current situation

The responses gathered from the survey highlighted several contradictions/

dilemmas/gaps in the current climate in schools in the region. Firstly, the teachers
responding to the survey seemed to understand the objective of integrating culture in
language teaching yet, in practice, the time allocated for culture awareness is limited;
secondly, although teachers have voiced their desire to include a cultural element in their
classroom teaching, in practice the effectiveness of it is constrained by their own
inadequacy; and lastly, the official document may have set the direction for schools with
regard to students’ ICC but the current state of affairs does not adequately prepare the
students for the future. This is made worse in view of the effect of globalization that has
inevitably increased the pace of change in societies and heightened the differences
among human beings that increasingly have the need to create understanding, respect
and tolerance.

6.2.1 The Official Document

As discussed in the previous chapter, teachers who participated in the survey showed that
they understand the objective of including cultural awareness in language teaching. To a
certain extent, the official document has achieved its objective in setting the direction for
the schools; however this official directive may indirectly impede the teachers’ creativity
in their classroom teaching. This is because based on the curriculum of language
teaching in China, the component in cultural awareness represents about 20 percent of
the entire syllabus, hence no matter how interested the teachers may be in teaching
cultural awareness, linguistic skills and knowledge acquisition take precedent, and the
level of competency cannot be compromised because it will affect the career choice of
the students. Hence it is not surprising that the status quo of 80/20 (80% of the

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classroom time on teaching language skills and 20% on the cultural component)
framework is still preferred.

It is also interesting to note from the feedback of the survey that teachers believe that an
open attitude towards other cultures is a necessary condition to develop students’ ICC
and the development of the students’ ICC should be the ultimate objective of language
learning. Teachers felt that these statements of belief were not clearly spelt out or defined
in the curriculum, at least explicitly. Hence, there is seemingly a gap between the official
document and the beliefs of the teachers. Having said that, the purpose of the Official
Document is not to be a prescriptive document to provide restricted directives to the
teachers; the document should be taken as a guideline in providing direction for schools.
Because of this general purpose, the ambiguity provides room for teachers to interpret
and implement these new ideas into their classroom teaching. In other words, it is not
uncommon to find a gap between Official Document and practices in school; rather than
considering it a failure in the formulation of the Official Document, it should be regarded
as a work-in-progress in crystallizing the ideas in the Official Document into classroom
teaching.

One of the aims of this research report is to set the direction of curriculum development
in the future. I have in the previous chapters discussed how ICC is taught in America,
Canada and United Kingdom and comparison has been drawn from the official
documents of these three countries. I concentrate my analysis on America and United
Kingdom because of space restriction as well as, to focus on the two major western
cultures from Chinese students’ point of view. They are more familiar with English
Proficiency Tests like TOEFL and IELTS from United Kingdom and SATs from America.
However the emphasis on the diversity of Canadian society and the presence of
minorities – and the effect this has on the foreign language curriculum – is an important
insight for China where there is (too much) uniformity in the curriculum. This is an issue

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of particular importance in the region where my work has been carried out.

In general, the American syllabus is more functional in nature whilst the UK counterpart
took a thematic approach in the course design. Regardless of the differences in
approaches, the crux of the matter is that strong emphasis is found in introducing cultural
awareness and the integration of cultural elements in language acquisition. In
comparison, the China approach takes a different form in which it is still focused on
attaining certain skills or expertise in language– perhaps due to its infancy stage of
English language development. Although it is indeed a huge step forward in recognizing
the importance of cultural awareness in the curriculum, the implementation of the
initiative has not achieved the desired outcome. This is because the teachers’ survey
indicated strong interest to include the cultural factor and willingness to culture teaching.
For instance in the earlier chapter I have traced the logical link of thoughts among them,
and the teachers have expressed understanding in teaching culture but the time constraint
to complete the syllabus according to examination format becomes a hindrance for
teachers to spend more time on culture teaching.

As mentioned earlier in this chapter, the level of cultural awareness among teachers will
remain stagnant at the superficial level – small ‘c’ culture (referring to the products of
everyday life and to the conditions of their production as mentioned in the Literature
Review chapter) – if changes are not made in the syllabus and more resource materials
written to address the issue. English language learning in China, as discussed before, is
premised upon acquiring an international language that provides career opportunities and
broadens the horizon of the students - this was also outlined in the official document of
the open door policy in China in the early 1980s. Hence, English and cultural learning in
China is an instrument for students to explore beyond their own geographical boundaries
and perhaps cultures. This poses an interesting challenge for curriculum development
because as mentioned by Crystal (2003), since the number of native speakers– referring

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to British and American – has already been outnumbered by non-native English speakers
in the world, there is a great likelihood of English speakers coming from countries and
cultural backgrounds other than UK and USA. Hence focusing the cultural awareness on
American and or British cultures may not sufficiently prepare the students for the future.

Nevertheless, the inclusion of cultural awareness is an important milestone in the

language development in China. The inadequacy suggests the infancy stage of
development of ELT which after all has only been a mere 30 years.

6.2.2 Teachers’ Background and Experience

The current state of affairs in the classroom is very much influenced by the teachers’ own
academic background and experiences. As discussed in Chapter 5, the majority of the
English teachers in Xinjiang is between the ages of 20 to 39 with 1 to 10 years of
teaching experience and has a 4-year diploma. In other words, they are likely to be the
pioneering batch of students who were taught the English Language in a new innovative
way versus the Grammar-translation method as described in the Deepening Stage of
Language Development discussed in Chapter 2. This perhaps explains the relative
open-mindedness and positive attitude among these teachers in the teaching of culture
awareness and their belief that the ultimate aim of language teaching is to develop
students’ ICC.

However, their enthusiasm is dampened by their own inadequacy in the subject matter
due to their academic background and life experiences. Firstly, these teachers went
through a less rigorous route of education and this may, to a certain extent, hinder their
effectiveness in the classroom. Although this research does not reflect direct correlation
between the academic qualification of teachers and teachers’ level of enthusiasm in the
subject, the responses collected from the survey showed a hint of teachers feeling
inadequate in cultural teaching. It is interesting to note that from the data collected,

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although teachers mentioned their inadequacy in relation to a lack of classroom time,
more importantly, embedded in the responses was an implied message of a lack of
content competency among the teachers. Part of the reason could be due to the method of
instruction and the Chinese view of the role of the teacher discussed in Chapter 3. In
China, teachers in general are still regarded as an authority figure in the control of
information and knowledge, hence teachers are the only legitimate source in providing
information and knowledge in class and this places a huge amount of burden and
responsibility on the teachers. This traditional role of a teacher and the mentality that
comes about remove the responsibility of learning away from the students and place
enormous pressure on the teachers to achieve results. This is particularly difficult for
those teachers who do not have the subject competency to excel in the classroom. Hence,
this may have contributed to teachers avoiding discussion of big ‘c’ culture items
because teachers believe that they have to be an expert in these areas before they can
teach these topics in class.

The level of teachers’ competency and background also affected their understanding of
the definition of culture. Responses from the survey have shown that teachers do not
relate culture to political/social/economic arenas and tend to think of it as traditions or
customs passed down from generation to generation. Discussions on the macro themes
of politics, social and economic issues are clearly more challenging compared to customs
and folklore, and I suspect this could be due to the teacher’s level of competency
although I have no sufficient data to support it. This is perhaps an area for further
research. Nevertheless, the data collected and analyzed so far provide an impetus for
change in curriculum development, and it is critical in providing a package of well
developed and clearly instructed teaching materials and resources for teachers.

It is also worthy to note that in China today, particularly in Xinjiang where my research
project is based, the method of teaching is still fairly traditional in nature, and as such it

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is not surprising to note from the survey that teachers are struggling with the idea to
switch from a teacher-centred teaching approach to a student-centred one. Moreover,
teachers are also at the same time, trying to find a balance in providing more skill-based
learning rather than taking on a knowledge-based approach in developing students. I
believe that students’ ICC could be improved and developed much further through
skill-based learning because the pace of learning of students should not be constrained by
the current level of knowledge of the teachers. Given the skill to learn, students would be
able to progress at a much faster pace than relying on teacher’s ability to gain knowledge.

The teachers’ life experience is important in shaping their belief and hence teaching.
These young teachers could well be at the beginning stage of their career and hence
generally do not have the resources to travel abroad. English language teaching in China
has since progressed from the transmission of knowledge to the current comprehensive
language competency model. The memorization of a list of vocabulary and grammar
rules may still be necessary in grasping the nuances of the language, but such a method
of teaching and learning is no longer sufficient in this new era of language acquisition. If
the cultural element is transmitted in the same manner as learning the rudiments of
grammar, there is then a danger in marginalizing the importance of cultural awareness in
language acquisition and undermining the entire progress made so far in the English
language curriculum development. The hard fact remains that these teachers are not and
have not been immersed in an English speaking environment, and this lack of experience
in using the English language in a different culture impedes their effectiveness in the
classroom

Ideally, in order to overcome this situation it is necessary to provide immersion

programmes for the English language teachers, which inevitably require a huge
investment of resources. However, an alternative method is to capitalize on the wealth of
resources available from the internet and other new media source to complement the lack

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of real life experiences. The survey has shown that some of the teachers have already
implemented these features in their teaching but there are yet others who are less
receptive to implementing these initiatives on their own. A more concerted effort is
needed in designing in-service programmes for the teachers in school to help them pick
up the skills and competency in using resources other than the textbooks. Another way is
to provide opportunities for teachers to interact and converse in English with teachers
from a different country. This would require schools in Xinjiang to invite visiting
teachers from English speaking countries, or from countries where EFL teaching is of a
high standard so that Chinese teachers could benefit from the interaction.

6.2.3 Institution/External Environment

The discussion so far is to provide an analysis of the current status of language teaching
in Xinjiang. While the teachers understand the objective of cultural teaching in language
acquisition, most teachers are not willing to increase the time spent on this subject matter.
This lack of commitment from the teachers could perhaps be explained by the highly
examination-oriented environment the Chinese students study in. The teachers are
burdened with a great responsibility to maintain high passing rates among the students,
hence in a highly competitive environment, it is rational for teachers to take a pragmatic
approach in teaching to secure a better academic future for their students.

Although cultural awareness is one of the teaching objectives in the current curriculum,
it is also noted from the data that the weight on cultural content is a mere 10 percent of
the entire language examination. Hence, in order to be successful in integrating the
cultural element in language acquisition, there must be a systematic change to the entire
assessment system to include cultural competency or provide a higher weigh of it in the
examination.

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6.3 Implications from the data and some considerations

Based on the data presented in Chapter Five, the following implications can be drawn: (1)
understanding and defining culture; (2) culture’s importance vs. culture in the classroom;
(3) redefining the role of the teacher (4) training, support and vision .These four
implications will be discussed respectively below.

(1). Understanding and defining culture

The data show that teachers have difficulty in defining culture (see Chapter, section 5.3)
reflecting Street’s (1993, p 35) comment that ‘the problems with the concept of culture
are manifold’. The complexity of the concept is rarely acknowledged in the policies or
present in the objectives and textbooks for language teachers .They have to find their
own stand in relation to the concept of culture in the new environment but ‘teachers as a
group have no common framework for deciding what is an appropriate concept of culture
for their teaching context’ (Byram & Risager, 1999: 83). They often find themselves
sponsoring a variety of aims that they feel unable to fulfil (see e.g. Castro et al., 2004),
and they feel ill-prepared, nervous and reluctant to focus beyond their linguistic
competence (Kramsch & Murphy-Lejeune, 1996).

Therefore language teachers need to be trained not only to be familiar with these
concepts, dealing with social and cultural values, the importance of linguistic and
cultural diversity and citizenship (Kelly et al., 2004), but also with what lies behind the
new skills and strategies the students are expected to learn. For this, teachers are asked to
teach for cultural/intercultural awareness which means that they need to have explicit
training in this aspect.

(2). Culture’s importance vs. culture in the classroom;

Data have also shown that teachers have tried to identify cultural teaching objectives set
in the curriculum. The purpose of teaching culture, according to their understanding, is to

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raise and maintain learners’ lasting interest and motivation in language education, to
widen their world view through the language the students are learning, to arouse
students’ awareness of differences between cultures which are most acknowledged (see
chapter 5, section 5.2.4). Even when cultural objectives have been clearly outlined,
further decisions have to be made as to what cultural aspects should be included to
enhance communication and how they can be introduced to students. There do not seem
to be clear criteria that can facilitate such decisions (Met, 1993), and therefore ‘language
teaching is still operating on a relatively narrow conception of both language and culture’
(Kramsch & Murphy- Lejeune, 1996: 105). Another view of this finding is that some
teachers simply don’t know how to translate their understanding of the culture objectives
into action in their classes. They have to teach to the test in terms of grammar, reading
comprehension, etc. This may well be, but it does not seem to concur with teachers’
belief in the inseparability of language and culture. The implication here is to establish a
cohesive relationship between language/culture teaching objectives and how they are
reflected in the syllabus; between syllabus and course materials; and between classroom
practice and the assessment of intercultural skills (Valette, 1986; Ruane, 1999;
Liddicoate, 2004). And these will be my future considerations of further research and
will be a part of training content.

(3) Redefining the role of teacher

Due to social and political changes, the need for intercultural cooperation in the global
village, the information and communication explosion, the changing views on language
teaching and learning, with an emphasis on constructivist and lifelong autonomous
learning, are all factors that contribute to the definition of the language teacher’s role
today (Sturtridge, 1997; Byram & Risager, 1999).

As it was discussed in the literature chapter, language teachers need to be equipped with
complex skills in order to competently carry out multiple roles. Traditional roles of

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teachers in education as information transmitters, providers of language models,
materials developers, and evaluators can’t meet the changing views of language teaching
and learning. Teachers are required to have multiple roles in terms of psychological,
technical and ethical perspectives (see Chapter 3, section 3.5.6.). It is very clear that the
role of the language teacher has expanded very much beyond its traditional boundaries
and therefore the nature of teachers’ responsibilities has also changed. Therefore teacher
education programmes need to take into account teachers’ extended roles and
responsibilities not only as educators but also as learners. As Lies Sercu remarks, ‘it is
crucial to make teachers experience that the innovation at hand requires changes in their
self-concept, in their professional qualifications, in their attitudes and skills […] teachers
need to start seeing themselves not only as trainers but also as trainees’ (Sercu, 1998, p.
256). How prepared language teachers are to fulfil all these new roles and to carry out the
corresponding responsibilities as teachers and learners depends greatly on their training
and professional development. Thus the training course is needed to make teachers
realize their new roles and responsibilities as learning happens in a wide variety of
settings .As Byram put it, teachers need to consider their own potential change of
professional identity from being a teacher of language to being a teacher of intercultural
competence. To adapt themselves to the new role, they need to enhance their own
cultural awareness and intercultural competence (Byram, 1999).

(4) Training, support and vision

From the data, teachers’ belief about language and cultural/intercultural teaching are
related to the following areas which invite me to think about the training course. For
some teachers, training is a type of support. They don’t think that teacher’s initial
training programmes helped them a lot in terms of culture/intercultural teaching (see
Q17-t). The implication here is the possibility of modifying the effect of initial training
course through further, in-service education.

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For other teachers, they do not have specific instructions in how to teach culture to
promote students’ awareness in language education. As one teacher put it ‘Now
task-based approach is advocated in China and I don’t know how to design tasks to teach
language, not mention to teach culture, impossible!’. More relevant data convinced me
that they require assistance, methodology supports. The training on methodology of
culture teaching is obvious. The link between training and support on one hand, and
vision, on the other, comes from teacher’s belief that, as part of further learning how to
define culture and cultural awareness, how to integrate culture into language teaching,
they need to understand why they should integrate it, for what purposes, and with what
benefits. Training may help teachers understand, not only how to teach culture to raise
student’s culture awareness, but why to do so.

The lack of training and, subsequently the lack of knowledge of culture results in high
levels of frustration for some: ‘With such emphasis on learner-centred learning and
task-based teaching etc. in the schools now...I am extremely frustrated as a teacher
because I don’t know how to teach even though I had taught for 20 years’. The
frustrations experienced by some teachers may also be accompanied by certain fears
about these new changes. Therefore training must take into consideration teachers’
emotional response to the new change. In terms of teachers’ emotional response to the
new change, training may be important in order to give them the confidence needed to
believe that they can effectively, comfortably integrate culture into language education.
To feel comfortable teaching culture, teachers may believe that it is important that they
know more than the students on the subject.

Having a vision and wanting to bring about change may require facing many challenges
ahead. A major challenge I am concerned with is the difficulty in changing the way
teachers’ think.

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6.4 An Action Plan for teachers in Xinjiang

Without a doubt teaching practices reflect the thinking and belief of teachers as was
shown in an earlier chapter, and given the examination-oriented environment, it is
difficult for teachers not to teach hard facts of culture instead of developing students’
cultural understanding, skills of relating, interpreting, discovering and analyzing.
However, it is not the intention of this research project to either change the system of
assessment or to eliminate the competitive spirit in the school system. The intention of
this research is to find out whether there is a need to introduce cultural element in the
curriculum and implement changes in the classroom teaching. I believe there is a real
need in the schools and sufficient data to provide timely support to the teachers
struggling on the ground.

The formulation of an Action Plan should be firmly focused on the needs of the teachers.
From the data collected in this research project, I have come to recognize the need for
school teachers to receive professional development through in-service programmes
conducted by my teaching college. The survey conducted in this research reflected the
possible cultural topics which school teachers preferred to be included in their teachings,
but this information could at best be used as a measure of preference because of the
problem of asymmetric information – decisions made based on incomplete information.
In other words, given the level of competency and background of the school teachers, it
is likely that decisions on curriculum development based on their preferences may
jeopardize real progress in language development. Nevertheless, the information
provided by the teachers is useful in developing a localized curriculum and in designing
the new courses based on it.

With regard to the change in the language curriculum, there is an urgency and need in
helping school teachers and teacher trainers in defining or appreciating the complexity
and abstractness of the term – culture. As reflected in the survey, it is indeed difficult to

305
teach culture when it is not well defined, and the ambiguity of the term in the official
document provided an escape route for teachers from having a deeper appreciation of
cultural understanding. It is not the intention in this research to ridicule the introduction
of small ‘c’ cultural elements to the students; it is however the contention of this research
to avoid reducing the teaching of cultural awareness to the transmission of cultural facts
and knowledge.

There is also a need for teachers to gather confidence in moving to a student-centred,

skilled-based teaching environment. The in-service programme would be an ideal
platform to introduce cultural topics by way of student-centred teaching method. This is
a difficult transition process because it means losing ‘control’ for some teachers but they
can be successfully converted if they are given the first hand experience to sit in a
student-centred learning environment. Hence, having experienced how a cultural
awareness lesson can be taught in a different manner and with the relevant content,
teachers can ‘reproduce’ the lessons in schools. Given time I believe a domino effect will
take place in schools and the students’ ICC would be substantially increased.

Although it is beyond the scope of analysis of this thesis, a preliminarily idea is to

develop materials to systematically integrate cultural teaching to all levels of school.
Assessment will be placed at critical stage to measure the cultural quotient of students.
Although this idea may attract strong criticism by scholars because of its reductionist
method of measurement, this may be a happy medium given the overall macro climate in
China – in terms of constraints placed by the Ministry and the competitive nature in the
school system. The idea is to design teaching based on possible desired learning
outcomes with a good mixture of small ‘c’ and big ‘C’ cultural items, which will require
a paradigm shift in the designing and developing of the curriculum. Nevertheless,
whatever form it takes the fact remains that there is a real need to re-design the
curriculum in language teaching in Xinjiang.

306
6.5 Limitations and the need for Future Research

The research method of this project is a survey, and as indicated in section 4.2. I was
aware of the weaknesses as well as the strengths of survey by questionnaire. In the
course of completing this research, it was clear that of the lack of interview data meant
there were some lapses in terms of analysis. Although this has not substantially affected
the results of the thesis as a report of a mainly quantitative survey, it has however
prompted me to think about how a possible methodology could include focus groups or
one to one semi-structured interviews to obtain deeper explanations in addition to the
numerical data.

Secondly, it is clear that teaching without learning occurring is not effective. Due to
reasons mentioned in the methodology chapter, this study is focused only on teachers’
perceptions of culture teaching. Whether students accept the teachers’ perceptions or not
and what they think about this issue are not researched. It would be desirable in future
research to investigate in a similar way the perceptions and wants of learners as this is
particularly essential for the development of courses to meet both teachers’ and students’
needs.

In this analysis, I have found that culture teaching in China focuses on transmission of
culture information which lacks the skills of relating, interpreting, discovering and
interacting, lacks of attitude and critical cultural awareness. The Chinese language
curriculum requires a change in attitude in promoting critical cultural awareness in the
process of language education. It is these neglected areas, I hope to draw attention to and
to extend knowledge and discussion in the English curriculum and teacher education. A
possible strand of future research could be in analysing the inertia in critical thinking
among teachers.

307
Unlike many other countries, research work anchored on intercultural approach in
foreign language teaching is not common in China, but it is an essential development for
language teaching in China. Hence, more research work is needed in the intercultural
dimension.

6.6 Researcher’s Reflections

This has been a long journey for me to get this far. I started the programme in year 2000
and I had no idea then how hard and painful this journey was going to be for me. During
the course of study, I have gone through personal tragedy of losing my father suddenly
and ailing physical health for myself. Being in a less developed part of the world like
Xinjiang has increased the challenge of completing my PhD by a few levels – internet
was not available in my early years of research. Particularly in Xinjiang, the library
collection is limited and it is not easy to get access to English books, not to mention
books on education. Hence, this lack of access to reading materials has been a constant
struggle in my PhD journey. Financially I am only able to live at a subsistence level
given my annual income as an educator in the teaching college; the financial burden is
huge which has caused much stress and anxiety these few years. However, in all these
personal challenges, I have learned to be strong and not to give up easily. What motivates
me is this simple truth of ‘never give up if your heart tells you to go on’.

Professionally, I have gained much in the process of completing the thesis. First of all, I
have learned so much about research methods. Although I had heard of terms like
quantitative and qualitative research, action research etc., I was not familiar with these
concepts. Preparing the chapter on research method gave me the opportunity to re-visit
these terms again and to read journal articles and books I have never come across in the
library in Xinjiang.

308
Although I may have taught English for over 20 years, I think these last few years have
made me a better teacher than the years combined before. I have learned to be more
understanding and observant in my teaching, this is gained through my own observation
of my thesis supervisor. Because I have gained through observing others, this has
influenced me in believing that the teachers in Xinjiang can also gained from observing
better teachers at work through in-service training.

There is an old Chinese proverb that says success comes after pain and hard work, I have
indeed tasted the sweet success of obtaining my professorship title in 2006 and in the
midst of challenges and trying to meet deadlines, published over 20 papers. This will not
be possible without sheer determination and encouragement from my supervisor. I have
learned so much from him, not just professionally but also personally – to be a better
person.

I have gone through the panic of not knowing to the triumph of gaining and
understanding. And most of all, I discovered that patience is a virtue because from my
own PhD experience, learning has to take its own course and it does not happen
overnight.

Finally as I came to the end of the thesis and the viva examination, I have been stimulated

to think about other ways of conceptualising the task I set myself in this research. Two
that have come to mind are the learning of English as a ‘global core skill’ rather than as a
culture-laden language, and the other is learning English through a ‘bilingual education’
route. Both could be seen as possible alternatives to EFL with a cultural dimension, and
have been talked about by some researchers, including two from the University of
Durham: Bilingual Education in China (Feng, 2007) and a EdD thesis whose author I
met during my studies, Content-based Immersion of English Teaching in Higher
Education in China (Yu, 2001). Thus the future of my focus as a topic for research

309
might well be assured with this variety of conceptual approaches.

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337
Appendix 1 Attainment 2,5,8 regarding cultural awareness designated

in the curriculum

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

11

12

13

14
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

338
Appendix 2 A Cover Letter of the Survey

Dear Mr./Mrs./Ms____________

The cultural awareness was introduced into the English curriculum as one of the teaching objectives

in language education in 2001 for the first time in China. The importance of language and culture

teaching has been given increasingly attention. In order to know how school teachers and trainers

understand this new change, I shall be undertaking a research on Teachers’ Perceptions of Culture

Teaching in the Secondary Schools in Xinjiang which will be the title of my thesis studying for degree

of the Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Education, University of Durham.

To enable me to carry out the research, I am now asking you to spend some time answering my

questionnaires. This is really helpful for me to find out what your opinions about culture teaching in

the Language education. I will appreciate very much if you can tell me as much as you can. Complete

confidentiality and anonymity will be guaranteed and all names disguised in my report on the

research. So you can tell the truth. I would also be grateful if you are willing to assist me with my

research which could prove useful not only to my personal research but also to Xinjiang’s EFL

education in the secondary level, benefiting students as well as the teachers’ needs and interest.

I am looking forward to your answer to my questionnaires. If you have anything you are not clear

about, don’t hesitate to ask the person who distributes the questionnaire or contact me by email,

especially for those who answer it online. My email address is hui.han@durham.ac.uk .

Thanks in advance and best wishes

Sincerely yours,

Han Hui

339
 Appendix 3

Survey: Teachers’ Perceptions on Culture /intercultural Teaching

Part One language and culture teaching objectives

Please choose the answers which are closest to your opinion by ticking (√) the box.

Q1 Are your students interested in teaching culture(s) of

interested
Very

Interested

Undecided

Interested
Less

Interested
Not
English speaking countries when teaching English as a
foreign language?

Q2 Are you interested in teaching culture(s) of English

interested
Very

Interested

Undecided

Interested
Less

Not Interested
speaking countries when teaching English as a foreign
language?

Q3 Which part of the culture(s), do you think, is most interesting in teaching about English language
cultures?

undecided

Q4 How important is culture, do you think, in teaching English

important
Very
important

important
less
important
Not
language? Put a tick (√) in the box which best presents your
opinion.
?

To answer the question 4 Please check the box with a √ which best represents your
opinion. ….

√
undecided

Q5 How do you perceive the objectives of English language teaching?

important
Very

important

i
less
important
Not
t t

340
(1) Let students experience the learning process, acquire the learning methods
of scientific research and promote awareness of cooperation

(2) Raise students’ awareness of openness and willingness to accept the

excellent world culture.

(3) Develop students’ long-lasting enthusiasm for learning, good learning

habits and self-confidence in learning English well.

(4) Assist students to acquire a proficiency of English language which will

enable them to meet their future needs in their learning, work and life .

(5) Promote students’ familiarity with the culture, the civilization of the
countries where the language which they are learning is spoken

(6) Assist students in developing a better understanding of their own identity

and culture.

We are very interested in your perceptions of aims on ‘culture teaching’ in the English language
teaching. Please check (√) the option which best represents your opinion ….

undecided
Q6 What do you understand by ‘culture teaching’ in English teaching
important
Very
important

lessimportant
i
Not
context?

t t
(1) Provide information about the history, geography and political system of
the foreign culture(s).

(2) Provide information about daily life and routines

(3) Provide information about shared values and beliefs.

(4) Provide experiences with a rich variety of cultural expressions (literature,

music, theatre, film, etc.).

(5) Develop attitudes of acceptance and tolerance towards other peoples and
cultures.

(6) Promote increased understanding of students’ own culture.

341
(7) Promote the ability to handle intercultural contact situations.

(8) Make language teaching more interesting and motivating.

(9) Widen students’ horizons on the world.

(10) Promote students’ ability to evaluate and their sensitivity to different

cultures.

(11) Promote students’ awareness of similarities and differences of English

speaking countries.

Please tick (√) the option that best corresponds with the average distribution of time over
‘language teaching’ and ‘cultural teaching’
(√)

Q7 How is your teaching time distributed over ‘language teaching’ and ‘culture (√)
teaching’?
(1) 100%language teaching—0% culture teaching
(2) 80% language teaching - 20% culture teaching
(3) 60% language teaching - 40% culture teaching
(4) 40% language teaching - 60% culture teaching
(5) 20% language teaching - 80% culture teaching
(6) 100% integration of language-and-culture teaching

Please tick (√) the answer that best matches your opinion

Q8 Do you want to spend more time on ‘culture teaching’ during your English
teaching (√)

(1) Yes, very much so;

(2) Yes, up to a certain extent ;
(3) No opinion
(4) No, not particularly;
(5) No, not at all

If you want to spend more time on ‘culture teaching’, but somehow you do not do it , what may be the
reasons for that?

342
Part Two Possible cultural topics

Below are some possible topics for culture teaching, please rank them in order of importance
from1-5. If you assign ‘1’ it means very important, if you assign ‘2’ it means second important,
and so on . ’1’
’2’

Q9 What part of cultures associated with the English language you think should be taught at the
middle school levels?

(1) political system, history and geography

(2) daily life and routines

(3) shopping and food and drink
(4) youth culture (fashion , music, etc)
(5) literature and art and drama
(6) school and education
(7) family life and marriage life
(8) film, theatre and TV programmes
(9) social and living conditions
(10) festivities and customs
(11) tourism and travel
(12) religious life and tradition
(13) gender roles and relations
(14) working life and unemployment
(15) environmental issues
(16) our own culture and identity
(17) values and beliefs
(18) body language
(19) international relations

Please tick (√) your answer which best presents your opinion.

Q10 Do you think it is necessary to have a

Very necessary

Necessary

Undecided

Less necessary

Not Necessary

cultural item included in the English

curriculum?

343
Part Three Teaching methods or approaches towards cultural teaching

We are interested in your opinion about the following statements in Question 12. Please put a
tick (√) under the letter in the column (only one tick), which best presents your opinion.
AB C D E (√)
Q11 How do you pass cultural information on to your pupils/ students if you are interested
in teaching culture in English class?

A. very often B. often C. sometimes D. seldom E. never

A B C D E
(1) I teach culture in English class based on the textbook I am
using.
(2) I tell my students what I heard or read about the foreign
country or culture.
(3) I ask my students to discover the aspects of the foreign
culture.

(12)
(4) II ask
ask my
my students
studentstotoact out whatinthey
participate learn in
role-play terms of
activity in
culture learning
which people from different culture meet.

(13)
(5) II ask
usemy
audio tapesto in
students my some
recite classdialogues.
and ask them to mime
according to what they hear.
(6) I focus my attention on some culture-loaded new words
teaching .
(7) I teach them some English songs or poems to let them
experience the different cultures.

(8) I ask my students to describe cultural phenomena which

appear in textbooks or somewhere else.

(9) I show them film videos and discuss what they watch.

(10) I download some pictures or cartoons having cultural

images and let them discuss them.

(11) I ask my students to compare their own cultures with

foreign cultures.

344
Part Four English Teaching Materials
The questions below concern English teaching materials. Please tick (√) the one that best
matches your situation.

Who chooses the textbook(s) for you?

Q12

1 Yourself
2 The school
3 The local educational administration
4 The provincial educational administration
5 Don’t know

Q13 Are you free to use additional materials you think useful for cultural teaching in
your class?
1 Yes, I can
2 No, I can’t.
3 I don’t know.

Q14 Does the textbook you use contain information (for example texts, pictures) about
English language cultures?
1 A lot.
2 Bits here & there
3 I don’t know
4 Little
5 Not that much

Q15 To what percentage is cultural knowledge included in the exams by your

estimation.
1 0%
2 1-10%
3 11-20%
4 21-30%
5 31-40%

Q16 Do the cultural contents of the textbook(s) you use meet your expectations?

1 Yes, very much so.

2 Yes, up to a certain extent.

345
 3 I don’t know
4 No, not enough.
5 No, not at all.

Part Five The cultural/intercultural dimension of FLT

Please tick (√) the letter which best matches your opinion.(only one tick).
‘A. B. C. D. E. ’ (√)
A strongly agree B agree C undecided D disagree E I do not agree at all'

A B C D E

Q17 To what extent do you agree with the following?

(a) In a foreign language classroom, teaching culture is as
important as teaching the foreign language.

(b) Before you can teach culture or do anything about the

intercultural dimension of foreign language teaching, students
have to possess a sufficiently high level of proficiency in the
foreign language.

(c) Intercultural competence cannot be acquired at school.

(d) It is impossible to teach the foreign language and foreign

culture in an integrated way.

(e) I would like to promote the intercultural competence through

my teaching.
( )
(f) Cultural teaching has no effect what so ever on students'
attitudes.

g) The more students know about the foreign culture, the more
tolerant they are.

(h) In international contacts misunderstandings arise equally often

from linguistic as from cultural differences.

(i) Foreign language teaching should not only touch upon foreign
cultures. It should also deepen pupils' understanding of their
own culture and identity.

346
(j) When you only have a limited number of teaching periods,
culture teaching has to give way to language teaching.

(k) Every subject, not just foreign language teaching, should

promote the acquisition of intercultural communicative
competence.

(l) A foreign language teacher should present a realistic image of

a foreign culture, and therefore should also touch upon
negative sides of the foreign culture and society.
,

(m) If one wants to be able to achieve anything at all as regards to

intercultural understanding one should use texts written in the
mother tongue and discuss these texts in the mother tongue,
even when in a foreign language classroom

(n) In the foreign language classroom students can only acquire

additional cultural knowledge. They cannot acquire
intercultural communicative competence.

(o) Only when there are ethnic minority community pupils in your
classes do you have to teach intercultural competence.

(p) Language and culture cannot be taught in an integrated way.

You have to separate the two.

(q) Intercultural education reinforces students’ already existing

stereotypes of other peoples and cultures.
( )
(r) Providing additional cultural information makes students
more tolerant towards other cultures and peoples.

(s) I consider the introduction of ‘cultural awareness’ into the

English Curriculum as an important reform.

(t) My initial teacher training course didn’t give me any help with
teaching the cultural dimension.

u In the course of teaching methods, the section of ‘how to

teach culture’ should be added in the text book.
‘ ’

347
 Part Six Personal Data

18.Your age is
A. 20-30 B. 30-40 C. 40-50 D. 50-60

19. How many years have you been teaching English?

A. 1-5 B. 5-10 C. 10-15 D. 15-20 E. 20-25 F. over 25

20. What degree(s) did you obtain after you finished secondary school?
A. two-years Zhuanke B. two-years Benke C. B.A D. M.A E. Ph.D

21. Which grade are you teaching?

A. Grade7 B. Grade8 C. Grade9 D. Grade10 E. Grade11 F. Grade12

22. Your school is in

A. city B. region C. town D. village E. tuanchang

23. How many hours do you teach per week?

A. 6-10 B. 10-14 C. 14-18 D. 18-22 E. 22-26

24. Does your school have internet? (Please tick √

Yes No

25. If yes, do you often use it to search for the information you need in your teaching?
A. very often B. often C. sometimes D. Never E. I don’t know how to use it.

26. Have you received any training on English Curriculum Standards?

Yes No

348
Appendix 4

The transcript of teachers’ understanding of ‘culture’ in Q3

No.

1
3
7
10
11
12 5
13
16
17
21

22 ’ ’

23
24 ’ ’
25 ’ ’
26
27
28
29
30
31

32

33
‘ ’
34

35

349
36

37

39 ‘ ’

41

42

43
48

49

’ ’
50

55 ‘ ’
56

’ ’
58
’ ’

62
63
65
67
68
69

73

74
75
76
77

350
78
79
81
82
84
85
86

87

89

90

91

97

101

102
103
104
109
113
117
118

119

120

121

122

123

124 ’ ’

351
125

126
128
129
130
131
132
135

136

137

138

139

140

142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153

154

155

352
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163

164

Culture is the appreciation or the understanding of literarure, music or even the whele of the
165
tradition.

166
167
168
169
170
171

172

173
174 ’ ’
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
’ ’
183

’ ’
184

353
185

186

187

188

191
192
193
194
195
196

197

200

201 ‘ ’
202
203
204
206
207
210
211
212
213
220
222 ,
223
224
225
227 1 2 3

229

354
231 ’ ’

232

236
237

238

239

240

241

242

243

244

245 1 2 3

246
’ ’ ’ ’
251

253

254

255

256

257

258

259

260

355
261 ‘ ’

262

263

264

267

268

269

270

271

273

278 I don't know.

279

280

281

282

283

284

285

286

287

288

289

291

292

293

356
357
Appendix 5

The transcript of the reasons why you want (don’t want) spend

more time on ‘culture teaching’ during your English Teaching in

Q8
1

2 because it is very important

10

11

12

13

15

16

19

20

358
22

23

24

25
27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34
35

36

37

60
38

39

40
43
44
45
46
47
48
50
52
56
57
58

59

359
60
61
62
63
64
65
66

68

68
70
78

79

80
81
82
83
86 50
88
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100

103

104

105

106

107

108

109
111

360
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120

121

123
125
126
127
128
129

130

131 ……

132

134

135

136
137

138

140

141

142

143

144
148
149
150

361
151

156

157

158
159

160

162

163
164
165
169
170
…,
173

175
179
180
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192

196

197
198
200

203

208

362
209
210
211
213
214
215
216
219 I'm very busy.
220

222

223
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
233
234
235
238
239

240

241

245
246
247
248
249
250

251

253

254

255

363
256

258
259
260
262
263
265
267
268
269
271

272

273

274
276
278
279
280

281

282

283

284
Chinalish

285

286
287
288
289 1. 2.
290
291
292
293 **
294
298
300

364
 21
301
21
304
311
316
317
318

319

320
321 60
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
330
331
332
333 student
334
335
336
338
339
340
341

365
Appendix 6 Please give brief explanation why you chose these

cultural topics in Q9

12

13

14

19

23

25

26

27

28

29

31

34

35

39

41

69

366
73

74

75

76

77

78

79

80

81

82

83

84

85

86

90

95 Edution is very important in develping a country.

98

117 **

118

119

120

367
 1. 2.
121 ’ ’

122

123

124

,
125

126

128

129

130

131

132

133

134

135

136

137

139

142

149

150

368
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153

154

155

157

158

160

161

162

166

167

168

170

171

172

174

178 The culture should contain the custom and the attiitude towords the value of life.

179

182

183

369
18

251

253

254
**

255

256

257

259

260

261

262

263

264

267

270

278

292

370